[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 4/23/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

April 23, 2008

 

2. Supply -

 

 

Pipeline project will reduce pumping to preserve drinking water

The Desert Sun – 4/22/08

By Denise Goolsby, staff writer

 

Wondering what all the digging's been about in the Whitewater River and Coachella Valley Stormwater channels?

 

It's the first phase of the Coachella Valley Water District's Mid-Valley Pipeline Project, which is 50 percent complete and on schedule to start delivering irrigation water to some valley golf courses by mid-July, district officials said.

 

The new delivery system will send Colorado River water - via the Coachella Canal - to mid-valley golf courses to reduce the amount of groundwater they use, thus saving drinking water, said Steve Robbins, the district's general manager.

 

The valley's drinking water comes from a vast underground aquifer that is now in overdraft - meaning more water is being pumped out than is being replaced.

"We hope the first phase will reduce pumping by about 8,000 acre-feet a year," Robbins said.

 

When finished, the $70 million, 6-mile Mid-Valley Pipeline will stretch from Fred Waring Drive at the Coachella Canal in Indio to the water district's Palm Desert water reclamation plant at Cook Street.

 

Crews using massive earth-moving equipment are burying 54-inch-diameter pipes 20 feet below the surface.

 

There's some jumping around when it comes to laying sections of pipe, Robbins said.

 

One end of the project may be closer to completion than another, depending on the work schedule.

 

Workers are laying the last of the pipes along the storm water channel between Adams Street and Dune Palms Road.

 

About 30 mid-valley golf courses already use some recycled water for irrigation. They include Indian Ridge Country Club and Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert and Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, Robbins said.

 

The pipeline will eventually carry irrigation water from the canal to up to 50 golf courses in Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells, Robbins said.

Also, a new receiving reservoir at the recycling plant will have the capacity to hold 65 acre-feet of blended canal and recycled water, which will in turn be used initially to serve 12 golf courses.

 

In the past, the district had been unable to supply golf courses with all the recycled water they needed for irrigation, especially in the summer.

When the temperatures head north, so do the snowbirds, which means fewer toilets are flushing across the valley.

 

Fewer toilet flushes mean less water to treat at the recycling plant, said district spokeswoman Heather Engel.

 

When there's not enough recycled water available, golf courses have to use groundwater - the valley's drinking water - for irrigation, she said.

 

By blending canal water with water produced at the recycling plant, the district will have a much larger supply of irrigation water available, she said.

 

Toscana Country Club uses about 60 percent recycled water to irrigate its 18-hole golf course and all the landscape, said Richard Sall, the club's golf course superintendent.

 

Once the project is online, the club will be able to access more recycled or blended water when they need it the most - in the summer.

"That will be even less well water I'll have to use," he said.

 

Sall said the club could eventually use as much as 75 percent recycled water - a savings of about 150 acre-feet of ground water each year.#

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080422/NEWS01/804220322/1006/news01