[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 7/31/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

July 31, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

 

Irrigation Projects Portend Well- Supplied Future

Patterson Irrigator- 7/30/08

By Jonathan Partridge

 

 

“Really, what we’re doing is taking (local irrigation) to a different level.”
— John Sweigard, Patterson Irrigation District general manager

 

Drought conditions and pumping restrictions for state and federal water projects have severely limited allocations for farm water districts this year.

The tough times mean many irrigation districts, including Patterson Irrigation District, have turned to groundwater pumping as an important supplement.

But unlike some other districts, PID representatives say an arsenal of existing and future projects should help them survive the current crunch and also prepare for the future.

“Really, what we’re doing is taking it to a different level,” said John Sweigard, the district’s general manager.

Patterson Irrigation District provides agricultural water to 770 customers on about 12,800 acres. Its boundaries, which previously included land within the approved Villages of Patterson development project in eastern Patterson, are roughly Del Puerto Creek to the north, Marshall Road to the south, Highway 33 to the west and the San Joaquin River to the east.

As part of the future planning, a new backup pump system along the San Joaquin River has already been put in place, and the district plans to start using a new reservoir off Fruit Avenue by mid-August.
District officials have also kept busy over the years with other projects, ranging from a reservoir and sediment basin off Marshall Road to an automated system that allows the district to control pump operations from its office.

Past benefits
The Patterson Irrigation District has benefited greatly from water rights it obtained from the state by virtue of pulling water from the San Joaquin River before 1914.

The 98-year-old district, which started as Patterson Ranch Co. and Patterson Water Co., gets between 70 percent and 80 percent of its water supply from the river today, with its remaining supply coming from groundwater, recirculation projects and the Delta-Mendota Canal.

This year, the district sold water via a one-year transfer of its Central Valley Project supply before it was apparent that there would be a drought season, and groundwater pumping has been necessary, Sweigard said. But, he added, the district generally tries to use groundwater as a last resort.

Many other districts are forced to rely mostly on state allocations — via the California Aqueduct — or federal water — via the Delta-Mendota. Those sources have been severely restricted as a result of dry conditions and a court decision protecting the Delta smelt, an endangered fish native to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

By contrast, the Patterson Irrigation District has had an excess supply in past years, and it continues to transfer water elsewhere for a profit. That has provided a hefty chunk of change that has been used to create a slew of storage and pumping projects.

Increasing storage
Among those projects is a reservoir that the district completed off Marshall Road near Armstrong Road in 2003.

Sweigard said the reservoir was created in anticipation of a conditional waiver program approved that same year that called for farmers to meet more stringent statewide water quality goals.

A pond next to the 20-acre reservoir collects dirt, pesticide runoff and other excess items before the water is released for storage, preventing salt, boron and sediment from entering the San Joaquin River. The reservoir recycles about 2,000 acre-feet of water annually for the irrigation district’s use.

The project is jointly used for drainage by Patterson Irrigation District, Del Puerto Water District and the Gustine-based Central California Irrigation District. However, only the Patterson district receives water from the reservoir.

The reservoir was primarily funded through a $670,000 grant from CALFED, a joint state-federal effort to resolve issues with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Patterson Irrigation District contributed $400,000, and the Del Puerto and Central California districts also helped a bit with the effort.

“It was a real good deal,” Sweigard said. “We wouldn’t have been able to afford it at the local level.”

Now, the irrigation district is wrapping up work on a new reservoir at its northern end, off Fruit Avenue near Vineyard Avenue. That $3.5 million project will serve as a buffer, storing water that normally would drain into Del Puerto Creek. CALFED’s water use efficiency program will pitch in $760,000 for the program, and $997,000 will come from a state Water Resources Control Board program. The irrigation district will foot the rest of the bill.

Pumping plans
In addition to storage, the irrigation district has invested heavily in its water distribution system.

The pumps used by Patterson Irrigation District use a mixture of ancient and modern technologies. Pump houses, some nearly a century old, contain decades-old pumps, but they can be activated via modern computers from the district office. Those computers, put to use within the past decade, can monitor water levels and control pumping activity, among other features.

Meanwhile, the district installed a new backup pump on Old Las Palmas Road on July 11. The pump initially was intended for use when the river level dropped, but has been implemented more recently because of a mechanical problem with the regular pump.

That same area eventually will house a new pumping plant and fish screen, if all goes as planned. The fish screen project, estimated in 2006 to cost $16 million, would keep Chinook salmon and threatened steelhead trout from getting caught in the district’s pumps.

The district has committed $1 million to the project, and it is still waiting on state funding, Sweigard said. The district’s board wants construction for the project to start in September 2010 and the screen to be operational by 2011.

Moving forward
Irrigation district board member Al Scheuber, who used to work for the district and has served on the board since the 1960s, said the automated pumps are the most monumental difference in operations he has noticed in the past five decades.

“There’s been a lot of changes,” Scheuber said.

He said the pre-1914 water rights have been an asset throughout the years, and so far those rights have remained stable, though some government officials want to do away with them.

Of course, that asset — like all water sources — is ultimately dependent on rainfall.

And district representatives — like growers everywhere — are hoping the river will receive enough rainwater to keep it flowing through the Patterson area.

“If that river runs dry, then we’ll be in trouble,” board member David Fantozzi said.

He said the district would benefit greatly from plans to restore the flow of an eastern stretch of the San Joaquin River that is now dry, as water levels would increase as a whole.

Regardless of when that change comes about, district officials say their water projects and technological advances should help them along the way. And those projects have received attention locally.

Bill Harrison, general manager of the nearby Del Puerto Water District, which serves about 45,000 acres of farmland between Vernalis and Santa Nella, said many of the measures adopted by the Patterson Irrigation District are unique to the West Side.

“They have some state-of-the art systems right now that are worthy of note,” Harrison said.#

http://pattersonirrigator.com/content/view/1897/42/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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