Cerritos Avenue Reconstruction and Sanitary Sewer Improvements

Orange County's dense, growing population had taken its toll on a busy section of Cerritos Avenue—exacerbating existing problems and causing new ones. Resident safety became an issue on this deteriorating roadway, as did anticipated capacity issues from an undersized sewer main.

The community expected to suffer through the traffic, noise and costs associated with two overhaul jobs of this magnitude. But Harris' engineers collaborated with the County and City's approach that tackled both projects at once—maximizing efficiency and minimizing inconvenience.

Each step of this innovative design and planning required close coordination with the County of Orange/OC Public Works, the City of Anaheim and Garden Grove Sanitary District (GGSD) and the Harris team. The County, as lead agency for construction, combined its street improvements with GGSD and Anaheim's sanitary sewer improvements to create one joint project under a Cooperative Agreement.

The impressive process and results earned the 2015 BEST Project Award from the American Public Works Association’s Southern California Chapter (in the Drainage, Water & Wastewater category).

Core Elements

Harris & Associates prepared Plans, Specifications and Estimate (PS&E) construction documents for the sewer improvements on the project, up-sizing approximately 2,500 linear feet of existing 8-inch vitrified clay pipe (VCP) sewer main to a new 15-inch VCP. This work addressed capacity deficiencies for both existing and future build-out conditions of the sewer main. Key tasks included development and evaluation of feasible alternative alignments and determination of the final alignment. The project mitigates the risk of sanitary sewer overflows by providing adequate peak flow capacity and better service for 40 house connections.

Beyond the Blueprints

The creation of a truly efficient workflow prevented 3-5 months of additional construction, traffic and noise and saved $148,000.

This project's success may serve as an example for future endeavors, since Anaheim and GGSD are participants in a joint sewer agreement that shares costs for jointly-used sanitary sewer lines (owned by GGSD) under Cerritos Avenue.