The Reservoir No. 3 Landslide Remediation and Seismic Upgrades project answered many of the reliability and maintenance questions for the District’s largest zone. Built in 1977, the tank site experienced a landslide shortly after being built, severely limiting access to the reservoir. The lack of critical infrastructure to efficiently take this tank offline hindered the District’s ability to perform regular operations and maintenance safely and effectively, including crucial repairs needed to ensure that the reservoir could remain in service during and after an earthquake.

This effort addressed these challenges through a carefully orchestrated series of improvements, including: top-down soil nail slope stabilization to protect against future landslides; pump station and pipeline improvements to increase redundancy and resilience; intertie and PRV improvements to improve reliability; and reservoir foundation and mechanical improvements to improve seismic performance. These improvements also provide the District with increased operational flexibility, ensuring the District can continue to provide its customers with safe, reliable drinking water.

Bethlehem Inn is a non-profit homeless shelter serving central Oregon, located in the City of Bend. Offering more than temporary housing, Bethlehem Inn provides meals, case management, access to transportation, and work experience for its residents in need. Originating as a repurposed 1960s motel complex, Bethlehem Inn found itself in need of more space and embarked on a complete overhaul of their facilities. The mission and vision, Transforming Lives with Shelter and Hope, planned to increase its reach two-fold, provide expanded services, and an ADA compliant facility.

As part of the team of consultants who worked on the project, RH2 provided professional engineering services for the water, sewer, stormwater and site design. With Bethlehem Inn’s critical social service, it was necessary to remain fully functional throughout construction. To meet this goal, RH2 incorporated careful phasing of the improvements, which first involved clearing and grading, demolition of existing buildings, temporary erosion and sedimentation control, and temporary water and sewer connections. Subsequent work to finish the project included constructing new buildings, installing new stormwater facilities, final grading, and the permanent water and sewer pipelines and connections. This process required forward thinking, detailed project planning, and skillful site development to seamlessly move through each phase of redevelopment, while maintaining access and services to existing structures and bringing new facilities online. With giving back to our communities being one of RH2’s core values, we took this project as a pro bono case and managed the project remotely from our Seattle area office.

With construction complete, Bethlehem Inn is now able to serve twice the number of individuals and families, as well as offer full food service with a new commercial kitchen. This project was a resounding success and exceeded the client's expectations. With their new facility, Bethlehem Inn will continue serving the surrounding community for years to come.

Although earthquake preparedness is not a new topic of discussion in the Pacific Northwest, more municipalities, utilities, and citizens are taking a closer look at how to best plan for an inevitable seismic event. The Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District is proactively preparing for the impacts of a large earthquake on their water system by implementing ShakeAlert.

RH2 Engineering teamed with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) to develop a robust Advanced Seismic Controller (ASC) device that allows approved utilities to receive the ShakeAlert signal.

This signal, which is processed and distributed by hundreds of sensors across the West Coast to the other data centers and approved end users, provides users with real-time data about the time to shaking, earthquake intensity, depth, and other relevant information. RH2 is one of the few engineering consultants approved by USGS to provide technical assistance to help water, wastewater, and transportation agencies obtain and use the ShakeAlert system and signals. RH2 works with each utility to determine specific automatic actions, such as throttling valves, turning off pumps and other expensive mechanical equipment, and de-energizing electrical control panels. RH2 also assists in setting individualized ShakeAlert signal parameters (i.e., earthquake strength, time to shaking at your location, and the calculated reliability of the warning) for these actions to occur.

Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District is charged with providing potable water supply to the residents of the east Lake Sammamish plateau. In this capacity, the District is responsible for ensuring that water is available for both firefighting purposes and long-term health and human safety following an earthquake. After being approved for the ShakeAlert pilot program, which allows the District to more effectively plan for and mitigate the social and economic impacts of a major seismic event, RH2 assisted the District with identifying multiple benefits for implementing ShakeAlert that would support their responsibilities during and after a major earthquake. This includes retaining water for potable needs, shutting down motorized equipment to reduce damage, shutting down power to avoid electrical fires, and notifying water and wastewater system operations staff to get to safety.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when” the next major earthquake occurs. In an effort to equip utilities across the region with a way to plan for and protect against a major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, and protect vital water infrastructure from catastrophic failure, RH2 Engineering teamed with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) to develop a robust Advanced Seismic Controller (ASC) device that allows approved utilities to receive the ShakeAlert signal.

This signal, which is processed and distributed by hundreds of sensors across the West Coast to the other data centers and approved end users, provides users with real-time data about the time to shaking, earthquake intensity, depth, and other relevant information. RH2 is one of the few engineering consultants approved by USGS to provide technical assistance to help water, wastewater, and transportation agencies obtain and use the ShakeAlert system and signals. The signals alert operations staff, and RH2 works with each utility to determine specific automatic actions, such as throttling valves, turning off pumps and other expensive mechanical equipment, and de-energizing electrical control panels. RH2 also assists in setting individualized ShakeAlert signal parameters (i.e., earthquake strength, time to shaking at your location, and the calculated reliability of the warning) for these actions to occur.

After the City of Grants Pass expressed interest in applying for the ShakeAlert Pilot Program, RH2 assisted their staff with the application, which was approved earlier in 2018. Our team assisted the City with developing a plan to install the RH2-designed ShakeAlert device at a critical water storage tank (Reservoir No. 3) and creating a phased plan to eventually connect all major facilities to the signal. Implementation of the ASC device at Reservoir No. 3 was successful, and RH2 is now assisting the City with determining what automatic actions to take once the ShakeAlert signal is received, which will protect important pumps, treatment processes, and tanks during a major seismic event.

Located in a vital part of eastern Washington’s fruitful farmlands, the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District provides irrigable water to support the agricultural economy of our Evergreen State. To meet increasing demands within the Block 1 area served by the Pasco Pumping Lateral, the District proposed to construct a new pumping plant that would reuse irrigation return water and surface runoff collected within the Esquatzel Division Canal to supplement supply to this growing area, thereby reducing the need to divert more water at the Grand Coulee Dam.

Realizing that this project would have social, economic, and environmental benefits, the District approached USBR and BPA as project stakeholders. By reducing the amount of water diverted at the Dam, the District was able to show that this new facility would result in less energy usage due to pumping than could be generated and sold by BPA. This resulted in a $1.5 million grant from BPA. However, the grant offer had two caveats: the money must be expended by the end of BPA’s fiscal year, and the plant had to be operational before August 1, 2017.

RH2 Engineering managed the design team, which included NHC, Shannon & Wilson, and Cultural Resource Consultants, and provided construction oversight of the District’s contractor, Apollo, Inc. Significant challenges arose during the project due to concerns regarding historic and cultural resource impacts, pump station intake conditions, and energy dissipation at the outlet structure. In addition, site constraints and limited historical data on canal flows, created additional design and construction challenges associated with the weir structure and Esquatzel Canal in-water work.

Through careful coordination with all stakeholders, organized communication, and efficient project management, RH2’s team successfully designed, permitted, and constructed the Esquatzel Pumping Plant under the tight schedule, allowing the District to not only receive BPA’s funding grant, but also to receive federal reserve power which significantly reduces total operating costs.

Located on the Columbia River, the Butterfield Intake plays a crucial role as a reliable drinking water source for the City of Pasco. The screen quality was deteriorating, and it could not meet the Butterfield WTP’s 28 to 30 MGD capacity. Our original scope covered refurbishing the existing screen and installing a second traveling screen. However, further review of the data combined with new regulatory requirements required a solution that was far more complex than the City originally anticipated. RH2 prepared a technical memorandum summarizing the new regulatory guidelines and the resulting Butterfield intake facility capacity, and the City requested that RH2 amend the original scope to meet the new regulations as well as the future WTP capacity.

Located on the Columbia River, the Butterfield Intake plays a crucial role as a reliable drinking water source for the City of Pasco. The screen quality was deteriorating, and it could not meet the Butterfield WTP’s 28 to 30 MGD capacity. Our original scope covered refurbishing the existing screen and installing a second traveling screen. However, further review of the data combined with new regulatory requirements required a solution that was far more complex than the City originally anticipated. RH2 prepared a technical memorandum summarizing the new regulatory guidelines and the resulting Butterfield intake facility capacity, and the City requested that RH2 amend the original scope to meet the new regulations as well as the future WTP capacity.

Facing increased environmental regulations, the City of Cashmere selected RH2 to evaluate options for upgrading or replacing the City’s existing lagoon system WWTP and prepare a Facility Plan. A new WWTP was chosen as the preferred alternative and RH2 prepared preliminary and final designs. Additional services provided by RH2 include geological, permitting, bid process support, engineering support during construction, and control system integration and programming.

Anticipating that their existing water supply may become inadequate due to the severity of the drought in 2013, the City of Ashland took steps to move forward with the Talent Ashland Phoenix (TAP) connection to provide emergency water in case their existing sources were unable to meet the water demands of the city. In March of 2014, RH2 was retained to develop the design and construction necessary to address this urgent issue by late summer of that same year – compressing a project that would normally span 2 years into only 5 months. An extraordinary amount of coordination and planning was required to complete the design and construction of 15,000 LF of transmission pipeline, upgrades to the existing pump stations in the cities of Phoenix and Talent, and a new temporary pump station in Ashland.

We performed a structural seismic analysis of two 2.8-million-gallon, ground-supported steel water reservoirs at their View Acres site, built in 1966 and 1989. The structural evaluations found that both reservoirs were at risk for uplift and overturning during a current code-prescribed earthquake. The 1989 reservoir also required foundation modifications to avoid soil failure during an earthquake. RH2 designed upgrades to bring the two reservoirs up to the current code and safeguard them against a seismic event that could cause catastrophic failure and interrupt critical services to the area.

The City of Central Point in Oregon State needed to cross Bear Creek, a tributary of the Rogue River, with a 16-inch waterline to reinforce its water distribution system. Being a fish bearing stream containing protected species (salmon and steelhead), it is closely monitored and controlled by a number of state and federal regulatory agencies. RH2 designed a cost-effective crossing that met regulatory requirements and the City’s needs for improving its water system.

RH2 was a member of the planning and design team that conceived and constructed the 400-room award-winning YWCA Family Village in Issaquah Highlands. The development plan originally included a pedestrian bridge to connect the residential area to a Park and Ride garage across busy NE Highlands Drive, but it was deleted after bidding due to budget constraints. RH2 proposed a unique and innovative solution that resulted in the bridge being designed and built for less than the original cost of the design alone.

To further control its water supply and rates, the Highline Water District added another production well. The iron and manganese-laden production well was only the first of a myriad of challenges. Faced with land swap negotiations, permitting hoops, unforeseen delays, and numerous construction setbacks throughout the project, the District finally has a fully automated, waste-minimizing, water treatment plant and is a step closer to being in full water supply control.

How can $70,000 fund a $3,200,000 project? Strong partnering and creative funding that’s how! This project began as a phased, two-block, roadway repair project and grew to a complete corridor improvement project including full road reconstruction, bridge replacement, utilities, and pedestrian amenities. This was made possible by the close partnership, coordination, and foresight of the City of Cashmere, Port of Chelan County, WSDOT, FHWA, TIB, CERB and RH2 Engineering…a true success in project funding!

Tacoma Water needed to cover the last of its existing open air storage reservoirs at its McMillin Reservoir site, and determined that constructing two 33 MG pre-stressed, strand-wrapped concrete reservoirs inside the footprint of the existing Reservoir No. 2 would provide the best solution. Overall construction of the reservoirs is impressive and results in the world’s largest diameter, pre-stressed reservoirs. RH2 was hired in the beginning of 2008 to perform design services and, due to great economies of scale in the design elements, was able to complete engineering for less than 1.5 percent of the overall project cost.

The Organization Award can be given by the Section chair in recognition of outstanding service and exceptional devotion by an organization towards continued success in the activities of the Pacific Northwest Section of the American Waterworks Association.

Installation of approximately 18.5 miles of pipeline, converting open channel irrigation ditches to enclosed pressurized irrigation mains. RH2 assisted in design, bidding and construction inspection of the project on a very condensed timeline.

2.5 MG reinforced concrete reservoir to store water to be used during peak extended periods (up to two weeks) and stored for up to two months prior to peak day demands to maintain the instantaneous limitations of water withdrawal allowed by permit.