The San Patricio Municipal Water District has awarded a contract for $997,400 to Island Construction, L.P., for construction of the first leg of a new 16-mile water transmission pipeline. 

The new 18-inch PVC waterline will parallel an existing line providing drinking water to Taft, Odem, Rincon Water Supply Corp. and Seaboard Water Supply Corp.

The contract covers the first 3.5-mile section begins at the new West Portland ground storage tank and pump station. It will stretch west to FM 893 where it will connect with lines serving the City of Taft and Rincon WSC.  Pipeline construction is expected to be complete by early in 2011.

Engineer James Schwarz anticipates that the waterline will be completed at about the same time that the new West Portland pump station is ready to go into operation. This will allow for the line to be tested and put in service.

The transmission pipeline is one of a series of Water District projects in an $18 million expansion program designed to increase capacity, enhance reliability and maintain water quality.

Section 2 of the pipeline project will extend it an additional 10.5 miles to connect to the Odem area delivery system.  Section 3 will extend two miles westward to connect to the Seaboard system which serves a rural area. 

Customers in Odem, Taft, Portland, Gregory and rural areas currently receive drinking water treated at Corpus Christi’s O.N. Stevens Filtration Plant at Calallen via a line built in 1952.  As new treatment and pumping capacity comes on line and new pipelines are completed these customers will begin receiving water from the District’s two potable water treatment plants located between Ingleside and Gregory.