The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) plans to expand the sustainable capacity of its
Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant (SVWTP) from 120 mgd to 160 mgd in order to meet the level of
service goals of its $4.3 billion Water System Improvement Program. Key components of the plant
expansion are construction of a new chlorine contact tank (CCT) and a new 17.5 million gallon treated
water reservoir (TWR). The purpose of the CCT is to ensure adequate disinfection at higher plant flows
and to minimize disinfection byproduct formation by controlling the time in which the water is in contact
with free chlorine. The size of the CCT needs to be minimized to minimize construction costs, and this
analysis was used to determine how small it could be while still meeting disinfection requirements. The
size of the TWR was determined by an analysis of demand patterns. The treated water from the SVWTP
will be chloraminated between the CCT and the TWR. Issues related to the TWR were configuration of
the inlet and outlet, which also impact construction costs, and minimization of stagnant zones, which
could contribute to nitrification and resultant loss of chloramine residual. This paper summarizes the
results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to predict the hydraulic characteristics of the
proposed CCT and TWR. Includes 4 references, tables, figures.