Water managers switched on the first of three temporary pumps being installed along a 62-mile stretch of the Delta-Mendota Canal. The pumps will push water drained from San Luis Reservoir to upstream water districts facing water shortages.
“This is unusual and very difficult to fathom,” said Rick Gilmore, the general manager of the Byron Bethany Irrigation District. “This is the first time in history we’re doing it.”
His is one of five western San Joaquin Valley water districts that, along with the city of Tracy, will receive water from the backward-flowing canal.
The canal normally runs north to south for 117 miles from a federal pumping station in Tracy at the base of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the Mendota Pool north of Fresno.
Because of the drought, federal water managers had so reduced flows coming out of the Delta to the pumps feeding the canal that they have only been running for a few hours a night. The new pumps will be switched on when the flows can’t meet demand, Gilmore said Friday.
“We had water in storage in San Luis Reservoir from last year,” he said, “So in other words, to take advantage of that water that’s stored, we’re basically pumping it back uphill for use.”
Gilmore said the pumping project has so far cost the districts a combined $500,000. That doesn’t include operations and maintenance costs.
The canal is part of the federally managed Central Valley Project. A Bureau of Reclamation spokesman didn’t return a phone message left Friday.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article26421103.html