GLA affiliate, Clear Creek Associates, is honored to have played a key role in the Pinal Valley Recharge and Recovery Facility (PVRRF) project, recipient of the Arizona Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Project of Year award.

Exclusively reliant on groundwater as a water supply source, Pinal Valley has been over-drafting its limited native groundwater supply for nearly three decades. Clear Creek worked closely with Design Engineer of Record, Carollo Engineers, and Prime Contractor, Hunter Contracting, on what is the first Central Arizona Project (CAP) surface water recharge facility in Pinal County. The project addresses overdraft issues from continual groundwater pumping of the local aquifer of the Pinal Active Management Area (AMA) to meet future demands of the communities of Casa Grande, Coolidge, Arizona City, and Stanfield that the Arizona Water Company’s (AWC) Pinal Valley Water System serves.

Clear Creek’s role included collection of soil, lithologic, and water quality data; geotechnical analyses; design and implementation of a 60-day pilot basin recharge test; groundwater modeling; and preparation of a hydrologic study in support of an application for a new Underground Storage Facility / Water Storage (USF / WS) permit. Clear Creek Project Manager Don Hanson, RG, said “We’re proud to be a part of this project—it maximizes use of renewable surface water supply through underground storage and recovery, which is going to help achieve the AMA’s goal of reducing reliance on groundwater pumping and provide greater resiliency during drought.” Read more about the GLA companies’ water resources management expertise.

In a letter of recommendation, Andrew Haas, PE, Vice President of Engineering of AWC recognized that “the Company’s use of CAP water through recharge, storage, and recovery complies with and advances a crucial Arizona public policy by efficiently and cost-effectively using the state’s Colorado River water supply, reducing the reliance on mined native groundwater.”