Caltech, Not Ratepayers, to Cover $4.4 Million Pasadena Well Project Costs

Pasadena is poised to spend up to $4,361,375 finishing a groundwater-cleanup well in the city’s northwest — and under a 2006 agreement, residents will not foot the bill. Caltech will.

On Monday, June 22, the City Council will consider a contract with R C Foster Corporation for the above-grade improvements to the Explorer Well, the second and final phase of a project intended to bolster the cleanup of groundwater laced with volatile organic compounds and perchlorate.

According to the staff report, the contamination stems from “past disposal practices” at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is owned by NASA and managed by the California Institute of Technology.

The reason the cost stays off residents’ bills lies in Contract No. 18989, struck between the city and Caltech in 2006. It makes the direct costs of operating and maintaining the Monk Hill Treatment Plant reimbursable by Caltech, and the staff report states the well construction is reimbursable on the same terms.

“All costs are reimbursable by Caltech under Contract No. 18989,” the report says. “There is no impact to the General Fund.”

The well sits in the Monk Hill basin, where four Pasadena Water and Power wells draw the tainted supply. A 2014 NASA plan identified the new well as a way to “shorten the life cycle of the groundwater cleanup operations,” pumping water to the treatment plant before it reaches the city’s distribution system.

Located about 1,000 feet north of the existing Arroyo Well, the Explorer Well finished its below-grade phase — drilling, construction, well development, pump test and water quality sampling — in May 2025. The above-grade work covers a pump and motor, mechanical and electrical equipment, roughly 800 feet of pipeline and a building to house it all, with completion expected by Winter 2027.

R C Foster submitted the lowest of six bids, dated April 30, at $3,792,500, under the engineer’s estimate of $4,430,000; rival bids ran as high as $4,434,800 from Canyon Springs Enterprises. The staff report calls the firm “the lowest responsive and responsible bidder” and notes it has completed similar projects for the City of Pasadena, the City of Corona and California Domestic Water Company. The full not-to-exceed figure adds a $568,875 contingency for change orders to that base bid. The work was bid as a prevailing-wage project, with workers to be paid the general prevailing rate set by the California Director of Industrial Relations.

Staff recommended that the council find the action is not a “project” subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, and that the work falls within a previously adopted environmental review. About $3 million is expected to be spent in Fiscal Year 2027 and the rest in 2028.