Yakult Manufacturing

Fountain Valley California is the site of the first U.S. manufacturing plant for probiotic drink manufacturer Yakult. The facility consists of three buildings, including a 76,828 square-foot manufacturing plant, a single-story 11,221 square-foot office building, and a future 10,716 square-foot storage building. Construction of the new facility called for the design and construction of a stormwater management system that would meet local Low Impact Development (LID) regulations.

Consulting engineer Craig DiBias of Joseph C. Truxaw & Associates and landscape architect Dan Selig of Valley Crest Landscape Architects worked with Contech Engineered Solutions to develop two rainwater harvesting systems. These systems capture and reuse runoff from roof tops, parking lots, and other impervious surfaces and use the runoff for irrigation.

Each system consists of a CDS hydrodynamic separator for pretreatment, a DuroMaxx SRPE cistern, and mechanical pumps and controls. The east system consists of four barrels and contains 696 linear feet of 48” diameter DuroMaxx, while the west system consists of five barrels and utilizes 520 LF of 48” diameter DuroMaxx.

One of the obstacles that had to be overcome was the presence of high ground water. Engineers had to ensure ground water could not enter the cisterns. The watertight welded couplers of the DuroMaxx cisterns provided the confidence that ground water would not drain into the cisterns. Buoyancy calculations provided by Contech also showed the systems would not float due to the high groundwater. Contech also provided value by meeting with the engineer, architect, and owner to explain the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) process.

“Contech gave us the ability to get a complete packaged solution, with all the componentry from a single source,” said Craig Di Bias of Joseph C. Truxaw & Associates. “Contech is known for standing behind their products.”

The project won the ENR Award for Southern California’s Best Manufacturing Project in 2014.