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November 30 2025 Vol. VI • No 24
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Graniterock Builds Protective Underground Water Freeway The city of Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County sits at the southern tip of Silicon Valley. The city is home to several high-tech companies and has attracted upscale residents for dining, shopping, wineries and outdoor pursuits. While many California cities don’t get enough water, Morgan Hill sometimes gets too much. Fed by a multitude of tributaries and reservoirs, Llagas Creek often swells during significant rains, resulting in damaging floods to the nearby communities. The Santa Clara Valley Water District designed a project to help control Llagas Creek. Valley Water called on Graniterock, headquartered in Watsonville, to handle construction. Graniterock’s work will protect the area from 100-year flood levels. A key element of the effort includes widening a 6.5-mi. stretch of the creek by removing an estimated 720,000 cu. yds. of dirt and rock. Project leaders believe this piece of the job will keep excavators, bulldozers and trucks in action for some time. The effort will cost $129 million, with Phase 2B considered one of the top flood protection projects in the nation.
By Chuck MacDonald CEG CORRESPONDENT
see UNDERGROUND page 6
A key element of the Llagas Creek project includes widening a 6.5-mile stretch of the creek by removing an estimated 720,000 cu. yds. of dirt and rock.
The completed box culvert intake will be 10 ft. by 9 ft. and will improve the city’s storm drainage system.
Some of the dirt and rock that is excavated will be used to reclaim an old mining pit near Hollister.
The construction team is rerouting some of the tributaries to reduce their flow and will build a massive double-barrel box culvert.