How the $1.7B Echowater project stayed on time and on budget

With more $1 billion projects and larger cropping up, Brown and Caldwell leaders explain how engineers, designers, contractors and utilities keep large-scale projects on target.

Bob Crossen

May 30, 2025

Major metropolitan water infrastructure projects are bigger, more complex and more expensive than ever. With these sizes, projects like Echo Water in Sacremento can take a decade before they are completed. So how to engineers, contractors, designers, utilities and their stakeholders keep everything straight?

Strauder Patton, national program leader for program management for Brown and Caldwell, and Graham Calciano, Brown and Caldwell joint venture leader of the Echo Water project, talk about the tools and technologies that have made these large scale projects possible, and the challenges they face that smaller ones do not.

Additional Resources

Plant Profile

Plant Profile: Regional San EchoWater

The largest CWSRF project in California completes construction under budget while meeting permitting requirements for ammonia removal.

July 25, 2023

Plant Profile

Video Profile: Regional San EchoWater

Regional San's EchoWater project removes ammonia with biological nutrient removal as the largest California State Revolving Fund project in history at $1.7 billion.

July 28, 2023

Wastewater Treatment

Photo Gallery: Regional San Echowater

After one decade and $1.7 billion across more than 20 projects, the EchoWater project for Regional San is complete, making it the second largest plant of its kind in the U.S.Regional...

July 28, 2023

EchoWater was completed $400 million under budget, saving taxpayers more than half a billion dollars.

Case Studies

EchoWater project advances wastewater treatment to help relieve multiyear drought in Sacramento

Digital twin saves $400 Million for reinvestment into recycled water for the California agriculture sector, improving groundwater sustainability.

May 31, 2024

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About the Author

Bob Crossen

Bob Crossen is the editorial director for the Endeavor Business Media Water Group, which publishes WaterWorld, Wastewater Digest and Stormwater Solutions. Crossen graduated from Illinois State University in Dec. 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in German and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. He worked for Campbell Publications, a weekly newspaper company in rural Illinois outside St. Louis for four years as a reporter and regional editor.