Ground broken on state’s largest ultraviolet water plant

From Stockton’s Record:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom climbed onto the rubber-tired backhoe and fiddled with the levers. Before the machine roared to life, he turned to San Joaquin County Supervisor Leroy Ornellas and said: “For the record, supervisor, I have OSHA-approved hair. My old hard hat is right here,” pointing to his famously-slicked mane.

And with that bit of self-deprecating humor, Newsom turned earth on a $112 million water treatment plant which – combined with a larger-scale upgrade of San Francisco’s water supply infrastructure – will create an estimated 2,300 construction jobs in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.

A liberal, big-city mayor and would-be governor might have little in common with a right-of-center county supervisor and dairyman, but for one day at least Newsom and Ornellas were allies. They sat arm-to-arm during Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony on golden fields south of Tracy, and, when it was over, shared a laugh or two.

“We’re buds now,” Ornellas said with a smile, linking two fingers. “We’re like this.”

Many people don’t realize that San Francisco’s waterworks run through the southwestern portion of the county, part of a complicated linkage of canals and tunnels bringing Sierra Nevada water to the Bay Area.

The treatment plant – the largest in the state to use advanced ultraviolet technology – will clean that water before it flows to the taps of 2.4 million people.

Read more from The Record by clicking here.

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