BERKELEY — The replacement of a 126-year-old EBMUD reservoir in the hills took a major step Thursday with a daylong concrete pour to complete the roof of the downsized facility.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District project at Summit Reservoir at Spruce Street and Grizzly Peak Boulevard is replacing the original 37-million gallon tank with an updated and more seismically stable facility with 3.5-million-gallon capacity.
The 270-cubic-yard pour for the roof involved a 10-hour rotation of trucks coming to the 7-acre site.
The original reservoir was built in 1891, when most drinking water for the area came from local sources — including the watershed that is now Tilden Regional Park — and a larger storage capacity was needed.
“People used to rely more on local rainwater, but EBMUD provides quality drinking water from our Pardee Reservoir, and that’s what people are drinking in our system, ” Sharla J. Sullivan, East Bay Municipal Utility District community affairs representative, told the East Bay Times in December. “The need for a 37 million-gallon reservoir no longer exists.”
The new tank “will reside within the footprint of the existing reservoir basin, and when combined with the nearby Woods Reservoir tank (3.1 million gallons), will provide 6.6 million gallons of drinking water storage,” the utility said in an announcement.
The updated reservoir will have a new flow control valve and two new pumping plants that will mean “a more nimble water supply system for this area, allowing for ease of tank maintenance, adequate supply for peak demand periods, and maintaining fresh flow of high water quality,” EBMUD said.
There will also be a landscaped walking path along Grizzly Peak.
The entire project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
