City of Palo Alto Adoption of HDPE 4710 for Potable Water Distribution

Session 3A
3:30

Greg Scoby
Water Gas Wastewater Engineering Manager
Utilities Department
City of Palo Alto, CA, USA

The City of Palo Alto recently adopted HDPE 4710 as replacement material for water distribution system improvements. This adoption effort required Utilities Department staff to develop material standards, investigate available piping components, specify methods to transition from existing materials to the newly installed mains and work with equipment and material suppliers to define a complete potable water distribution solution. The Utilities Department also operates natural gas distribution, electric distribution, wastewater collection and dark fiber systems. Our familiarity with polyethylene developed through twenty five years of experience with this material prompted us to consider utilizing HDPE 4710 for our annual replacement project. Our recently constructed annual replacement project involved the installation of six miles of new mains in an urban environment employing both traditional open cut and horizontal directional drilling methods. Employing HDD methods allowed the Utilities Department to realize lower installed costs while providing our customers with a leak free, self restraining system that has a longer predicted life than materials previously utilized.

This presentation will detail the efforts associated with this material conversion along with a detailed overview of the project construction including lessons learned and our future goals to install a 100% fused water system from the main to the meter.

Greg Scoby
Water Gas Wastewater Engineering Manager

City of Palo Alto
Utilities Department
1007 Elwell Ct.
Palo Alto, California 94303