SACRAMENTO, CA—GEI Consultants, Inc., a leadinggeotechnical, environmental, water resources, and ecologicalscience and engineering firm, says it is providing certain Owner'sEngineer services for the proposed Sacramento MunicipalUtility District (SMUD) Iowa Hill Pumped-StorageDevelopment project.

GEI will be a member of the Jacobs Associatesteam for the project. SMUD recently awarded the Jacobs Associatesteam the Owner's Engineer services contract for preliminary designand construction services on their proposed project. Ifconstructed, Iowa Hill would be a 400 megawattpumped storage hydroelectric facility.

GEI will lead the design of the 6,400 acre-foot upperreservoir, a lined impoundment that will be formed by anearth- and rock-fill dam with a maximum height of more than 200feet and a crest length of 5,900 feet. The designof the dam and reservoir will be under the regulatory authority ofthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the CaliforniaDivision of Safety of Dams (DSOD).
The project would utilize an existing reservoir on the AmericanRiver, from which water would be pumped up to a new 6,400acre-foot capacity upper reservoir, where the water wouldbe stored. During peak electrical demand periods, water would flowfrom the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir via a1,000-foot-deep (305 m) shaft through 3,500 feet(1,067 m) of water tunnels. The electricity generated would connectthe existing transmission line that connects SMUD's existingUpper American River hydroelectric project withthe District's customers.
The team consists of Jacobs Associates (prime), GEI Consultants,HDR Engineering, AF-Consult of Switzerland, Carlton Engineering,AMEC, IEC Corporation, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants, StillwaterSciences, Ascent Environmental, Crux Subsurface, and FoxfireConstructors.