Seismic Safety of Water Lifelines: An Ongoing Process

The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) has successfully completed a ten year, award winning Seismic Improvement Program to bring the performance of its system to modern standards while meeting both its budget and schedule commitments. As additional earthquakes occur and seismic research advances, our understanding of the seismic impacts on water lifelines and facilities continually improves. Establishing and meeting post-earthquake service goals plus wise, efficient use of customer-provided funding make the Seismic Improvement Program (SIP) an outstanding example of successful seismic mitigation for water systems. But the work of maintaining seismic readiness is never complete. This paper examines EBMUD's completed and ongoing efforts to enhance system reliability for its customers by continually improving its design and construction standards for water systems. These standards use the best available tools for risk management, the latest developments in seismic research, numerous innovative design techniques and careful management controls to provide reliable, post-earthquake system performance for the benefit of the 1.3 million people in our service area. Case studies of completed and planned projects to improve system seismic performance are presented illustrating how standards are the key to seismic preparedness.