Month-long Closure on Beaumont Ave Planned For Pipeline Construction

Beaumont Avenue will be closed between Brookside and Cherry Valley Blvd starting Monday, June 9 in order to construct a $1.3 million water pipeline under Beaumont Avenue.  

The San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, who is constructing the line, scheduled construction for the summer in order to avoid interfering with school traffic along Beaumont Avenue.  The pipe will be constructed by Pro-Craft Construction of Redlands.

Detours will include Noble Street (northbound) and Nancy Street (southbound).  The closure is expected to last 30-45 days.  While construction of the pipeline will continue under Beaumont Avenue between Cherry Valley Blvd. and Orchard Street, this stretch will remain open during construction, as will all businesses in the area.  The pipe will also run under Orchard Street from Beaumont Avenue to the Mountain View Channel; Orchard Street will remain open during construction.

The construction is the first phase of a proposed regional conjunctive use groundwater storage facility to be built by the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency.  The facility is scheduled to go online in 2016, to coincide with the expansion of the East Branch Extension, the pipeline that delivers State Water Project water to the Pass region from San Bernardino. 

The ductile iron pipe will be 24-inches in diameter and will connect the East Branch Extension under Orchard Street to the proposed facility at the southwest corner of Beaumont Avenue and Brookside Avenue.  The contractor is expected to lay 200 feet of pipe per day.  Construction will include tunneling under both Noble Creek and Mountain View Channel using a process called jacking and boring.  It is the tunneling of the pipeline under Noble Creek that will require the road closure.

“This storage facility is required in order to assure the long-term drought-proofing of our region”, said SGPWA President John Jeter.  “We recognize that closure of any street is an inconvenience to local residents and businesses, but we are trying to minimize the intrusion as much as possible.  That’s why we are doing the construction in the summer, when school is not in session.”

Project updates will be posted on the Agency’s web site, sgpwa.com, on a regular basis.  Construction is expected to be complete by early August, before the school year begins. 

The San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency is a State Water Contractor and regional water agency that sells supplemental water to local water agencies to help replenish local groundwater basins.