News Release Archive

Project Completion Ceremony Held for the Delta-Mendota Canal/California Aqueduct Intertie

Media Contact: ,

For Release: May 02, 2012

Reclamation:  Pete Lucero, 916-978-5100, plucero@usbr.gov
SLDMWA:      Frances Mizuno, 209-832-6200, frances.mizuno@sldmwa.org
DWR:            Jennifer Iida, 916-653-3925, jiida@water.ca.gov

 

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--The Bureau of Reclamation, in partnership withtheSan Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority(SLDMWA) and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), today celebrated the completion of the Delta-Mendota Canal/California Aqueduct Intertie Project (Intertie). The celebration was held at 10 a.m. at the site of the newly completed Intertie, located approximately five miles west of the city of Tracy, Calif. 

Speakers at the celebration included Reclamation Commissioner Michael Connor; Congressman Jim Costa; Ameen Khan on behalf of Senator Barbara Boxer; Gary Prost on behalf of Congressman Jerry McNerney, in whose Congressional District the Intertie is located; and DWR Director Mark Cowin. The Master of Ceremonies, Dan Nelson, SLDMWA’s Executive Director, then led the group in a “flipping of the switch” ceremony to symbolically activate the Intertie’s pumping plant. The Intertie will be fully operational this summer.

The Department of the Interior committed $15.8 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to complete the Intertie. CALFED funding was $8.8 million. The remaining funding came from contributed funds and Reclamation’s budget. The total project cost was $29 million.

The Intertie connects the federal Delta-Mendota Canal (DMC) and the California Aqueduct through two 108-inch-diameter pipes and a pumping plant with a pumping capacity of 467 cubic feet per second. This new connection between the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and the State Water Project (SWP) will help address certain DMC water conveyance limitations, enhance flexibility of water deliveries and allow for infrastructure maintenance and repairs without disrupting water deliveries. The Interties will also address DMC conveyance conditions that presently restrict use of the CVP’s Jones Pumping Plant to less than its design capacity, potentially restoring as much as 35,000 acre-feet of average annual deliveries to the CVP.

For additional information on the project, please visit http://www.usbr.gov/mp/intertie/index.html.

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Relevant Link:

Intertie