Sewer Alignment Complexities in Historic Old Town Temecula

Eastern Municipal Water District (District) needed to increase the wastewater conveyance capabilities of the previously built-out historic commercial area of Old Town Temecula, California. This special water district evaluated several different alignments and construction methods, but with the heavily commercial area being only three blocks wide and dozens long bounded by a freeway on one side and a river on the other, very few options were viable. Several different trenching methods were considered for increasing capacity of the existing collection system. Initially a 36-in. microtunneled casing and carrier pipe was considered, but ultimately replaced with a less expensive option: Auger Boring Method. Once construction started, however, every drive attempt failed. Construction was completed by greatly exceeding the accepted drive lengths of traditional jack-and-bore. This paper describes the tunneling method evaluations and the ultimately successful construction approach.