California State Aqueducts

California State Water Project

• The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is the world's largest publicly built and operated water and power development and conveyance system.

• The SWP was designed and is operated by the California Department of Water Resources. The original purpose of the project was to provide water for arid Southern California which lacks adequate local water resources to provide for the growth the region has experienced.

California State Water Project

• The SWP was designed and is operated by the California Department of Water Resources.

• The original purpose of the project was to provide water for arid Southern California which lacks adequate local water resources to provide for the growth the region has experienced.

California State Water Project

• Today, the SWP provides drinking water for over 23 million people and generates an average 6.5 million MWh of hydroelectricity annually.

• However, as the largest single consumer of power in the state, its net usage is 5.1 million MWh.

Major Aqueducts

• California Aqueduct

• Los Angeles Aqueduct

• Colorado River Aqueduct– Also notable: Feather River System

California Aqueduct

• The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern- and Central California to Southern California.

• The Department of Water Resources (DWR) operates and maintains the California Aqueduct, including two pumped-storage hydroelectric plants, Castaic and Gianelli

http://esrp.csustan.edu/gis/

Has GIS data on CA Water Project

• The Los Angeles Aqueduct system comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Owens Valley aqueduct) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

• Designed by engineer and LADWP director, William Mulholland, the system delivers water from the Owens River in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains into the city of Los Angeles, California.

Colorado River Aqueduct• The Colorado River Aqueduct

is a 242 mi (389 km) water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD).

• The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border west across the Mojave and Colorado deserts to the east side of the Santa Ana Mountains.

• It is one of the primary sources of drinking water for Southern California.

Colorado River Aqueduct

Feather River

Lake Oroville

• Keystone facility of the State Water Project and its largest reservoir with a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet.

Lake Oroville and Oroville Dam are part of a complex which includes Hyatt Powerplant, Thermalito Diversion Dam and Powerplant, the Feather River Fish Hatchery, Thermalito Power Canal, Thermalito Forebay, Thermalito Pumping- Generating Plant, Thermalito Afterbay, and the Lake Oroville Visitors Center.

The Oroville-Thermalito Complex was designed as an efficient water and power system. It stores about 3.5 million acre-feet and generates power from releases made through Hyatt Powerplant and two other Thermalito generating plants. A special fish barrier dam was built to lead salmon and steelhead, returning to spawn, into the Feather River Fish Hatchery.

Lake Oroville

South Fork Lake Oroville Feb. 2009

Hetch Hetchy