Taking a “SIP”—Implementing JEA’s Southside Integrated Piping System in Jacksonville, Florida

In 2019, JEA embarked on the Southside Integrated Piping System (SIPS) to convey water from JEA's North Grid Main Street Water Treatment Plant (WTP) to multiple South Grid WTPs to add resilience to their drinking water system. The previously implemented Total Water Management Plan (TWMP) pipeline system delivered water from the Main Street WTP to the northern portion of the South Grid but is not capable of delivering water to the rapidly growing southern portion of the South Grid. By repurposing the TWMP pipeline system and implementing additional pipelines, SIPS delivers water directly to ground storage tanks located at multiple South Grid WTPs, including those in the center and southern areas of the South Grid, for final treatment and delivery to customers. Water supplied through SIPS will supplement each South Grid WTP's local wellfield supply and enable JEA to limit wellfield withdrawals to their permitted annual limits. To implement SIPS, numerous studies and planning efforts were performed, including regulatory agency coordination, hydraulic modeling and surge analysis, simulated distribution system and disinfection byproduct formation potential analysis, defining and prioritizing near-term and future projects to develop full functionality of SIPS, and route studies for SIPS water transmission mains. As part of SIPS, JEA is currently implementing two major pipelines to deliver water to their Deerwood and Greenland WTPs. This paper focuses on the planning, design, and construction of the SIPS Deerwood project, which includes 35,000 LF of 30-in. SIPS water transmission main, 4,000 LF of 24-in. raw water main, 3,600 LF of distribution water main, SIPS intertie station and ground storage tank connection at the Deerwood WTP, SCADA integration to control the delivery of water from the SIPS pipeline to the WTP, water quality monitoring, and decommissioning the existing TWMP intertie stations that are currently connected to the potable water distribution system. The SIPS Deerwood pipeline includes multiple trenchless crossings, two state road crossings, navigating multiple easements, a large ditch crossing, high-voltage overhead electric transmission corridors, a multi-phase maintenance of traffic plan, and a robust flushing and pigging plan. Development of an overall sequence of construction and schedule provided a framework for delivering the SIPS Deerwood project in three construction packages. The presentation will provide a dynamic overview of the project through the planning, design, and construction phases and insights into the delivery of this critical pipeline project for JEA.