Bay-area-water-agency-may-start. Colorado River Aqueduct. Map of the Colorado River Aqueduct Originally conceived by William Mulholland and designed by Chief Engineer Frank E. Weymouth of the MWD, it was the largest public works project in southern California during the Great Depression. The project employed 30,000 people over an eight-year period and as many as 10,000 at one time.[2] The system is composed of two reservoirs, five pumping stations, 63 mi (101 km) of canals, 92 mi (148 km) of tunnels, and 84 mi (135 km) of buried conduit and siphons.
Average annual throughput is 1,200,000 acre·ft (1.5 km3).[2] Route[edit] The Colorado River Aqueduct begins at Parker Dam on the Colorado River. Background and construction[edit] As the Los Angeles area grew in the early 1900s, Mulholland and others began looking for new sources of water. The MWD considered eight routes for the aqueduct. The CRA contributed to urban growth (even sprawl) in the south coast region. San Jacinto tunnel[edit] The MWD continued to encounter tunnel seepage. References[edit] Judge rules for San Diego in major water dispute - Imperial Valley Press Online: Nation / World. SAN DIEGO (AP) — A judge said Tuesday that a giant Southern California agency overcharges for carrying water on the Colorado River aqueduct, a major victory for San Diego in a high-stakes dispute. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow said Los Angeles-based wholesaler Metropolitan Water District of Southern California incorrectly set rates to bring water from the Colorado River to the coast on its 242-mile aqueduct from 2011 to 2014.
The San Diego County Water Authority, Metropolitan's largest customer, sued in 2010 over the transportation costs, claiming Metropolitan was using a windfall to subsidize millions of other customers in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties. Karnow's 66-page ruling followed a December trial. A second phase of the massive trial will address, among other questions, whether San Diego gets a refund. San Diego agency officials celebrated the ruling at a news conference Tuesday night. Delta smelt. Because of its one-year life cycle and relatively low fecundity, it is very susceptible to changes in the environmental conditions of its native habitat.[4] Efforts to protect the endangered fish from further decline have focused on limiting or modifying the large-scale pumping activities of state and federal water projects at the southern end of the estuary.
Taxonomy and evolution[edit] The delta smelt is one of five currently recognized species within the Hypomesus genus, which is part of the larger Osmeridae family of smelts. The genus has been subject to many revisions since it was first classified by Gill in 1863.[6] The first major revision occurred in 1963, when the Osmeridae family was reexamined by Canadian ichthyologist Donald Evan McAllister. Habitat[edit] The delta smelt is endemic to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California, USA where it is distributed from the Suisun Bay upstream through the Delta in Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano and counties.
Notes[edit] Battle brewing over California's Delta smelt. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —A little fish is at the center of a major political power struggle between environmentalists and farmers in the Central Valley. Scientists were on the San Joaquin River Thursday tracking the number of endangered Delta smelt. Watch report: Farmers, biologists battle over fish in San Joaquin River "The population numbers are plummeting year by year," said Paul Miklos, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Miklos told KCRA 3 on Thursday the smelt "have severely declined since the 1960s and 1980s. " "Historically, the smelt population has gone from hundreds of thousands," Miklos explained. But now, he said, "we're looking at tens of thousands. " The Delta smelt is a 3-inch fish, now at the center of a political power struggle between environmentalists and farmers.
"It's about the biggest water grab in history and running people out of water to protect this little fish," said U.S. EPA Regulations Cause Drought in California. California Drought, Our Food, Delta Smelt, Organic Farmers... We were talking to friends the other day and during the conversation they indicated they could not believe the price of vegetables in the grocery store.
I don't like to bear bad news, but I'm afraid we ain't seen nothin' yet. (The highlighted areas below give further clarity as to the problems we face.) And after you read this, you might ask yourself_ from where will our food come and at what cost? July 2013, Slate.com wrote: If we didn't have California, what would we eat? California supplies America with 99 % of artichokes, 99 % of walnuts, 97 % of kiwis, 97 % of plums, 95 % of celery, 95 % of garlic, 89 % of cauliflower, 71 % of spinach, and 69 % of carrots (and the list goes on and on).
Likely you are aware of the drought conditions facing California. In 2009, this article in the Wall Street Journal spoke to California's Man-Made Drought and the impact the smelt and federal regulations have had on farmers and America's premier agricultural regions. “We’ve been farming for 117 years. Feather River. The Feather River has a rich history of gold mining in the 19th century. It provides water to central and southern California, being the main source of water for the California State Water Project. Its water is also used for hydroelectricity generation. Course[edit] North Fork[edit] Buzzard Springs, partial source of the North Fork Feather River, near Rice Creek and with Lassen Peak in the background. The North Fork Feather River begins in Feather River Meadows at the junction of Rice Creek and South Arm Rice Creek, WikiMiniAtlas 40°21′47″N 121°27′5″W / 40.36306°N 121.45139°W / 40.36306; -121.45139. 40°27′24″N 121°29′4″W / 40.45667°N 121.48444°W / 40.45667; -121.48444, in Lassen Volcanic National Park, through Crumbaugh Lake, and south to join the South Arm Rice Creek, forming the North Fork Feather River.[13] The North Fork's length is about 102 miles (164 km), or about 112 miles (180 km) including Rice Creek.
From its source in Feather River Meadows the North Fork flows east. American Aqueduct: The Great California Water Saga. Hood, California, is a farming town of 200 souls, crammed up against a levee that protects it from the Sacramento River. The eastern approach from I-5 and the Sacramento suburb of Elk Grove is bucolic. Cows graze. An abandoned railroad track sits atop a narrow embankment. Cross it, and the town comes into view: a fire station, five streets, a tiny park. I've come here because this little patch of land is the key location in Governor Jerry Brown's proposed $25 billion plan to fix California's troubled water transport system. Too much is being asked of the Delta.
Brown's father, Pat, oversaw the completion of this productive, destructive system, and Jerry Brown himself tried to fix it during his first round as governor 30 years ago. The water intakes for the tunnels would flank Hood: two to the north, one to the south. It is an audacious plan, one that seems to come from another era, where governments were more ambitious in their transformation of the natural world. “Is his truck here?” California State Water Project. The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is the world's largest publicly built and operated water and power development and conveyance system – providing drinking water for more than 23 million people and generating an average of 6500 GWh of hydroelectricity annually.
However, as the largest single consumer of power in the state, its net usage is 5100 GWh.[2] Since its inception in 1960, the SWP has required the construction of 21 dams and more than 700 miles (1,100 km) of canals, pipelines and tunnels,[6] although these constitute only a fraction of the facilities originally proposed. As a result, the project has only delivered an average of 2.4 million acre feet (3.0 km3) annually, as compared to total entitlements of 4.23 million acre feet (5.22 km3). History[edit] Project description[edit] Delta facilities[edit] California drought: State Water Project will deliver no water this summer. For the first time in its 54-year history, the State Water Project, a backbone of California's water system, will provide no water to urban residents or farmers this year because of the severe drought, state officials said Friday. The announcement does not mean that communities will have no water this summer.
But it does mean that every region is largely on its own now and will have to rely on water stored in local reservoirs, pumped from underground wells, recycled water and conservation to satisfy demand. Silicon Valley and parts of the East Bay -- particularly residents of Livermore, Pleasanton and Dublin, who receive 80 percent of their water each year from the State Water Project -- will feel the impact the most in the Bay Area. Hardest hit, however, will be the state's huge agriculture industry. "We expect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the Central Valley to go unplanted," said Paul Wenger, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation.
Bay Area impact. Drought: Feds cut water to Central Valley farmers to zero. Central Valley farmers took a crippling blow Friday when U.S. officials made the unprecedented announcement that they would get no irrigation water from the federal government this year because of the drought. But growers in a region with the country's most productive soil said the loss of one of their chief water supplies won't be their problem alone: Consumers will be hit hard in the form of higher prices at the produce market. California's unusually dry weather is forcing producers of fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains to make tough decisions about which crops to plant, and which ones not to plant due to a lack of water, leaving harvests that are likely to fall short of demand.
A recent estimate by an industry group, the California Farm Water Coalition, suggested that as much as 600,000 acres of land, or about 8 percent of the state's total, could be left fallow in the coming year. U.S. Snowpack 29% of average If weather conditions change, the plans may change, federal officials said. Delta–Mendota Canal. The Delta-Mendota Canal The Delta–Mendota Canal is a 117 mi (188 km) aqueduct in central California, United States.
It is part of the Central Valley Project and its purpose is to replace water in the San Joaquin River that is diverted into Madera Canal and Friant-Kern Canal at Friant Dam. The canal begins at the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant (formerly the Tracy Pumping Plant), which pumps water 197 ft (60 m) from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The canal runs south along the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, parallel to the California Aqueduct for most of its journey, but diverges to the east after passing San Luis Reservoir, which receives some of its water. The Delta–Mendota Canal was completed in 1951 and is operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority, which is charged with maintaining the quality of the water that is discharged from the south end of the canal. Coordinates: Tracy Press - Local farmers warned about potential water cutbacks.
As historically severe drought conditions continue, Tracy area farmers are being warned by their irrigation districts to be prepared for the worst and in the meantime conserve as much water as possible. “The worst” for irrigation districts in this area would be curtailment of water pumped from the San Joaquin and Old rivers. This possibility, while discussed in several past years, has never become a reality in the century-long history of irrigation in the Tracy area. Banta Carbona, West Side and Byron Bethany irrigation districts have all relied on both river water and contracts for water from the Delta-Mendota Canal. This year, the allocation of water from the canal is expected to be zero, so the possible restrictions of river pumping could have a major impact. Naglee Burk Only the Naglee Burk Irrigation District northwest of Tracy relies solely on river water, but the district’s source, Old River, already has problems, reported Leonard Alegre, district manager.
Byron Bethany West Side. Peripheral Canal. The Peripheral Canal is a proposal to divert water from California's Sacramento River, around the periphery of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. It would transfer water into the California Aqueduct, North Bay Aqueduct, South Bay Aqueduct, and San Luis Canal via the Jones and Banks pumping stations, then be pumped to Central and Southern California (including San Francisco Bay Area water providers, like Santa Clara Valley Water District). Construction costs are estimated at between $3 and $17 billion, depending on the source. Freshwater flowing into the Delta displaces salt water entering from the bay. The freshwater/saltwater gradient has moved inland due to 5 to 7 million acre feet (6.2 to 8.6 km3) of water being exported each year to the Central Valley and Southern California. A peripheral canal would reduce the overall freshwater flow into the Delta and move the freshwater / saltwater interface further inland, causing damage to Delta agriculture and ecosystems.[1] History[edit]