Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Gary Gold and Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation Michael Brain recently participated in a four-day visit to Northern and Central California. Officials toured key sites and met with Central Valley Project water contractors, state and local officials, and Reclamation staff to discuss near-term and long-term solutions related to CVP operations, habitat restoration, and expanded storage and conveyance projects amid the state’s historic drought.
During the visit, officials toured Friant Dam and received an overview of operations followed by a site visit of construction activities for the Friant-Kern Canal Capacity Correction Project. In January, Reclamation, the Friant Water Authority, and the California Department of Water Resources broke ground on a $187 million construction project to restore capacity in a 10-mile portion of the Friant-Kern Canal.
The following day, leaders met with local stakeholders and visited key locations within their areas. Leaders also visited critical components of the CVP including the C.W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant and the Tracy Fish Collection Facility. The Jones facility lifts water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the Delta-Mendota Canal, supplying agricultural, urban, and wildlife water to parts of the Delta and to the San Luis and San Felipe Units of the CVP.
Officials also participated in the groundbreaking on a project that will become the single largest floodplain salmon rearing habitat restoration in California history. DWR and Reclamation are partnering on the “Big Notch Project,” a 30,000-acre floodplain habitat restoration and fish passage project in the Yolo Bypass in Yolo County.
The officials traveled north to the location of the proposed Sites Reservoir, a 1.5-million-acre-foot off stream surface storage reservoir. Sites Reservoir would store water diverted from the Sacramento River for future releases to beneficiaries throughout the state. The proposed reservoir would provide additional water supply for agriculture and municipal and industrial purposes, CVP-operational flexibility, anadromous fish benefits (migrating fish that return from the ocean to spawn), wildlife refuges, Delta ecosystem enhancement, flood damage reduction, and recreation.
A driving tour of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta provided an on-the-ground introduction to the unique landscape that is at the center of many of California’s water management decisions. Led by staff with Reclamation’s Bay-Delta Office, participants gained an understanding of the complex geography within the Sacramento River as it enters the Delta and the challenges associated with salinity control and mitigation efforts for fish species,
The visit concluded with a tour of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir Expansion project, partially funded by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. The project would increase water storage capacity in an existing footprint from 160,000 acre-feet to 275,000 acre-feet and add new conveyance facilities.
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