Sonoma Water details multi‑million‑dollar repairs and seismic upgrades serving Santa Rosa

Kent Guilfied, director of engineering for Sonoma Water, briefed the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities on the agency’s current water‑transmission capital projects and planning efforts, outlining work meant to improve reliability and prepare for droughts, earthquakes and other hazards.

The presentation described rehabilitation of three Santa Rosa Plain production wells, ongoing and planned tank recoating and foundation work across the transmission system, replacement of aging cathodic protection systems on major aqueducts, seismic vulnerability assessments and upgrades at booster stations, and a multiphase modernization of disinfection systems. Guilfied said the work is intended to maintain “reliability and resiliency of our water transmission system that’s serving your community.”

Why it matters: Sonoma Water supplies wholesale water to Santa Rosa and other local contractors; the projects are aimed at ensuring the system can deliver during droughts or when parts of the aqueduct are taken out of service for repair. Several projects also respond to changing regulations and to findings from recent inspections and regional resilience studies.

Project highlights included: - Wells: Guilfied said Sonoma Water is rehabilitating three Santa Rosa Plain wells that are kept for exceptional needs such as drought. Staff secured a $6,900,000 drought resiliency grant to help rebuild two of the plain wells and to add future aquifer storage…