Creating a Resilient Water Supply Through Portfolio Diversification

For the last decade, the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant has desalinated cooling tower blowdown from an adjacent power plant. The power plant’s shutdown forced Channelside Water Resources to develop a new intake structure.  

The $200 million Desalination Plant Intake and Discharge Facility is a technologically advanced, environmentally sensitive seawater facility. It continues the plant’s 50 million gallon per day (MGD) production capacity to San Diego County Water Authority, serving 10% of San Diego’s potable water demand. It’s part of a multidecade strategy to diversify the county’s water supply and minimize drought vulnerability. As the lead designers, HDR’s engineers worked alongside the Kiewit-Shea Joint Venture to create a constructable project.

The system’s dual-flow screens improve sustainability, maintain lagoon productivity and comply with California’s Ocean Plan Amendment. To implement the system, the team’s complex computational fluid dynamics modeling and collaborative, multi-phased design-build approach allowed ongoing plant operations during construction.  

The new intake weathers tidal fluctuations, sea level rise, tsunamis, earthquakes and poor, highly liquefiable soil. The team overcame supply chain issues that pushed material delivery out a year and prioritized early construction packages to accommodate an expedited commissioning schedule.  

Completed on budget and on schedule, the facility enhances the plant’s already glimmering status, making it one of the nation’s most environmentally sensitive plants while improving water reliability and climate resiliency.