State Water Project
The California State Water Project is the nation's largest state-built water and power development and conveyance system. It includes facilities—pumping and power plants; reservoirs, lakes, and storage tanks; and canals, tunnels, and pipelines—that capture, store, and convey water to 29 water agencies.
The SWP’s watershed encompasses the mountains and waterways around the Feather River. Rain and melting snow run off mountainsides and into waterways that lead into Lake Oroville. The lake in Butte County is the State Water Project’s official start and a part of a complex that includes three power plants, a forebay, and an afterbay. One of the power plants, Hyatt Powerplant, is the largest and was built in the bedrock under the lake.
There are three smaller lakes above Oroville in Plumas County—Antelope Lake, Frenchman Lake, and Lake Davis—which are mainly used for recreation and downstream releases for fisheries. Lake Davis also provides water to the nearby community of Portola.
water resources: the Sacramento and Feather rivers.
When water is needed, Lake Oroville releases water into the Feather River. It travels down the river to where the river converges with the Sacramento River, the state’s largest waterway. Water flows down the Sacramento River into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Some of the water is pumped into the North Bay Aqueduct, which serves Napa and Solano counties.
The remaining water travels further south in the Delta, where it is pumped by Banks Pumping Plant into the 444-mile-long California Aqueduct. Water then enters Bethany Reservoir, where the South Bay Aqueduct begins. It serves Alameda and San Jose counties.
Water in the mainstem of the California Aqueduct flows south by gravity into the San Luis Joint-Use Complex, which was designed and constructed by the federal government and is operated and maintained by the Department of Water Resources. Within the complex are O’Neill Forebay, Sisk Dam and San Luis Reservoir, the nation’s largest offstream reservoir (it has no natural watershed), the Gianelli Pumping-Generating Plant, Dos Amigos Pumping Plant, and the San Luis Canal. This section of the California Aqueduct serves both the SWP and the federal Central Valley Project.
After leaving the Joint-Use Complex, water travels through the central San Joaquin Valley and splits near Kettleman City into the Coastal Branch Aqueduct, completed in 1997, to serve San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
The water in the mainstem is pumped up California’s hilly terrain by three pumping plants—Buena Vista, Teerink, and Chrisman— until it reaches Edmonston Pumping Plant, the SWP’s largest. Its huge motor-pump units, each standing about 65 feet tall and weighing more than 400 tons, lift water nearly 2,000 feet up and over the Tehachapi Mountains through 10 miles of tunnels.
As the water reaches the bottom of the mountain, it bifurcates (splits) into two branches: the West Branch and the East Branch (the mainstem). Water in the West Branch is pumped by Oso Pumping Plant into Quail Lake. From there, it enters a pipeline leading into Warne Powerplant to generate power. Water is then discharged into Pyramid Lake, travels through Angeles Tunnel, and into Castaic Powerplant (the latter two are joint developments by DWR and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, their owner). At the end of the West Branch is Castaic Lake and Castaic Lagoon, a popular Southern California recreation spot.
Water flowing down the East Branch generates power at Alamo Powerplant then is pumped uphill by Pearblossom Pumping Plant. The plant lifts the water 540 feet. From there, it flows downhill through an open aqueduct, linked at its end to four underground pipelines which carry the water into the Mojave Siphon Powerplant, which discharges the water into Lake Silverwood. When water is needed, it is discharged into Devil Canyon Powerplant and its two afterbays. The 28-mile-long Santa Ana Pipeline then takes it underground to Lake Perris, the southernmost SWP facility and one of Southern California's most popular recreation spots.
The SWP's most recently constructed facility, the East Branch Extension delivers water from Devil Canyon Powerplant's Afterbay to Yucaipa Valley and the San Gorgonio Pass area in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The project— consisting of 13 miles of buried pipeline, three pump stations, and a 90 acre-foot regulatory reservoir—will meet the region's water needs for the next 40 years. SWP water will be used to recharge overdrafted groundwater basins and allow more flexibility for local water systems.
The extension, completed in 2003, is a cooperative project between DWR, the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, and the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency. The two contractors will pay for the project's construction costs by repaying the principal and interest of revenue bonds sold to finance the project.
Many SWP facilities were renamed to recognize individuals who made valuable contributions to the Project, the water industry, and environment.
| State Water Project Facts and Figures | |
|---|---|
| Number of storage Facilities | 33 |
| Lakes/Reservoirs (primary) | 21 |
| Total Reservoir Storage | 5.8 million acre-feet = 7.2 cubic kilometers |
| Largest Reservoir Capacity | 3.5 million acre-feet = 4.3 cubic kilometers |
| Largest Reservoir Surface Area | 15,810 acres |
| Longest Reservoir Shoreline | 167 miles |
| Highest Dam Structure | 770 feet = 235 meters |
| Largest Dam Structure | 80 million cubic yards = 61 million cubic meters |
| Longest Dam Crest | 42,000 feet = 12,802 meters |
| Highest Dam Crest Elevation | 5,785 feet - 1,763 meters |
| Length of Canals and Pipelines | 701 miles = 1,128.15 kilometers |
| Hydroelectric
Power Generation-(1983-2002) |
|
|---|---|
| Largest Annual Energy Output | 8.57 Billion kWh (2002) |
| Average Total Energy Generated Annually | 6.5 Billion KWh |
| Average Annual Energy Available | 8.6 Billion KWh |
| Average Net Use | 5.1 Billion kWh |
California
Aqueduct |
|
|---|---|
| Starting Maximum Pumping/Canal Volumes | 10,670 cfs /10,300 CFS |
| Largest Pumping Capacity | 15,450 cfs |
| Largest Canal Capacity | 13,100 cfs |
| Widest Part of Canal | 110 feet |
| Deepest Part of Canal | 32.8 feet |
| Highest Pump Lift/Volume | 1,926 feet = 587 meters/4,480 CFS |
Financing of the SWP
By the end of 2001, about $5.2 billion had been spent to construct SWP facilities.
Future projects focus primarily on maintenance and repair projects.
SWP financing of capital expenditures has come from various sources, the
major source being the sale of general obligation and revenue bonds, all
repaid by the SWP contractors, 29 public agencies that have contracts for water deliveries from
the Project. Other capital funding sources have included tideland oil revenues,
investment earnings, funds advanced by the contractors, recreation appropriations,
and federal flood control payments.