After more than a decade of construction, project delays and cost escalations, San Mateo’s Clean Water Program is nearly finished but still requires an additional $9.6 million from the city to cover final costs.
The $1 billion program includes the construction of a brand-new wastewater treatment plant — one of the biggest infrastructure improvement projects in the area — as part of its effort to enhance the city’s wastewater collection and treatment services. The program kicked off more than 10 years ago in response to a cease-and-desist order from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which stipulated the elimination of “sanitary sewer overflows and unauthorized discharges of untreated or partially treated wastewater to San Francisco Bay,” according to a previous staff report.
The treatment plant project, located off Detroit Drive and next to Leslie Creek, began in 2019 but saw several delays and cost increases. It’s not uncommon for large-scale infrastructure projects to escalate in cost, though, in this case, price spikes were also exacerbated due to the pandemic. Last year, city officials were told the final price tag would be about $25 million more than anticipated. While San Mateo was the lead agency, completing much of the design and construction aspects, the Estero Municipal Improvement District — which constitutes the Foster City Council — had a 24% stake in the expansion efforts.
“We projected in 2017 that we’d spend $991 million,” Engineering Manager Tom Williams said. “The current estimate at completion is $1.035 billion, which is about 4.4% more than what we projected in 2017. … Some things went over and some things went under, but we had really good results.”
Construction on the treatment plant was completed in the latter half of 2025, but other work, such as testing, remains before it can be fully operational.
“The big project left to do is to convert the existing aeration basins ... to an equalization basin to give the plant capability of holding some flow to catch up in those wet weather events,” Williams said. “The remaining site work should also be done by this coming May, and we expect the project to close out by June of this summer.”
During a meeting March 2, the City Council was told $6 million would cover minor construction costs related to treatment plant components — such as storage tank controls and HVAC material — as well as soft costs such as “project management, construction management, specialty inspections, owner-controlled insurance program, and engineering services during construction,” according to a staff report. Additional funds would be needed for work not directly associated with the treatment plant project, bringing the total to about $9.6 million.
The City Council will discuss the costs further as part of its budget meeting in June.
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