Richland Creek Reservoir Project Begins Hwy 61 Pipeline Construction

Another part of the Paulding County Richland Creek Water Supply Program construction was recently begun on a major water pipeline along the Highway 61 right of way from the Water Treatment Plant site (North of Harmony Grove Church Road) down to Walraven Place. The construction for this 11- mile long pipeline will take approximately 12 months to complete.
Brown and Caldwell, managing consultants on Paulding’s reservoir project construction, want residents to be aware that there may be reduced sightlines, periodic lane closures, and trucks entering and exiting the highway while that work progresses, and urge motorists to utilize caution when traveling in construction areas.
The project’s lineage involves a pump station at the Etowah River, three miles long, then another pump station in the reservoir that will pump water out into the treatment plant, and then another pump station that sends the water through 12 miles of pipe to Dallas.
According to Kelly Comstock, a managing consultant on Paulding’s reservoir project, the pipeline is broken into two separate projects. Comstock gave background on the Hwy 61 phase earlier this year during its bid process and also gave an update earlier this month.
“...In order to start the pipeline that runs along 61, we decided to break that out into separate pipeline; the second section that heads off and skirts around the city of Dallas -- about 10,000 feet -- is a different type of construction...so we figured that breaking it apart would speed the implementation and also get better competitive pricing,” Comstock told commissioners in July.
Comstock told Paulding commissioners earlier this month, that the project remains on track with its projected $215 million total budget, despite some additional structural modification costs at the reservoir intake station not factored into original estimates, but not identified until recently, he said. Comstock explained that as the design error should have been caught previously, once identified the changes were offset by Arcadis, the design engineers, to compensate the county for the added expense. Construction of the finished Water Pipeline and Booster Pump Station is expected to complete by March of 2019, with the entire project completion expected around 2021.
Funding is coming from a mixture of county-issued bonds, loans from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority, and state grants. The reservoir is designed to yield about 35 million gallons per day and will provide about 3.43 billion gallons of water storage to support Paulding County.
The RCR is located on approximately 700-acres of county-owned land in northern Paulding County, in Post 4 Commissioner Tony Crowe’s district. The RCR will be on Richland Creek but will be filled with water from the Etowah River.
For questions regarding the Hwy 61 pipeline phase, contact RCR inspector Lori Cirami at . For up-to-date traffic impacts, visit www.facebook.com/RCRWater.