Jacobs Engineering Group received a contract from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to provide construction management services for the Bay tunnel project in California. The project will construct 7,991 metres of 2.75 m finished diameter soft ground tunnel below the San Francisco Bay between the East Palo Alto area on the west side of the Bay and the City of Newark on the east side of it, two vertical shafts in areas adjacent to the Bay, and a watertight final lining of welded steel pipe. The project is expected to utilize a soft ground TBM and a bolted, gasketed precast concrete segmental lining system. The total installed cost of the construction project is valued at approximately USD270 million with a construction management contract value of USD18 million. The tunnel is one of the most critical elements of the water system improvement programme to ensure the delivery of reliable, high quality, and affordable water to 2.4 million customers in the four Bay area counties of Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco. Visit www.jacobs.com and www.sfwater.org 39/08.Prequalification is still open for construction of the Bay tunnel. A contractor must be prequalified prior to the final bid opening date (this could run down to the day before or even the morning before the opening, as long as they are approved prior to the bids being due). It can take anywhere from 1-3 months for the SFPUC to process a statement of qualifications. Interested candidates may contact the main number of the SFPUC's Contracts Administration Bureau at tel. +1 4155510736. Questions on prequalification may be sent to prequal@sfwater.org or to contractorshelp@sfwater.org. The currently prequalified contractors are listed at http://sfwater.org/msc_main.cfm/MC_ID/15/MSC_ID/150 clicking on SFPUC Pre-Qualified Contractors (the list of approved contractors can be found at the bottom of the page). 39/08.