Governor signs Gallagher’s bill about water storage

Gov. Jerry Brown this week signed a bill by Assemblyman James Gallagher to expedite construction of water storage projects, such as the proposed Sites Reservoir in Colusa and Glenn counties.

The new law will allow water storage construction projects to utilize alternative delivery methods for procurement.

“It’s great. It’s something we worked with a lot of different stakeholders on, as well as worked across the aisle on,” Gallagher said. “It’s nice to see something that I think is going to be really helpful with building water storage.”

Before the new law was passed, water storage projects were required to use a design-bid-build method, which split the process into two phases requiring an agency to complete the designs before sending it out to bid.

The bill Gallagher co-authored, AB 2551, was essentially meant to simplify the process and provide agencies with different options to complete construction more quickly. The new options, which have been used in other public works projects, include “design-build,” “construction manager at risk” and “design-buildoperate.”

“It will help with the timelines and ultimately save taxpayers money on a project,” Gallagher said. “That was the concept behind it. Ultimately, this legislation will help us get a project likes Sites Reservoir and Temperance Flat in Fresno off the ground much faster.”

The design-build method allows a local entity to procure both design and construction services from a single company.

The construction manager at risk method allows a local entity to choose a construction manager to provide pre-construction services during design, who later becomes the general contractor during the construction process.