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KERN BUSINESS JOURNAL
Februar y/March 2014
Cross Valley Canal: One of state’s most important By Trent Taylor
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Photo courtesy of Martin Varga
The Cross Valley Canal was constructed in 1975 to move State Water Project water supplies from the California Aqueduct to urban Bakersfield and to meet agricultural demands.
Friant-Kern Canal. In the 1990s, in an effort to increase flexibility of water deliveries to residents, farmers and the newly constructed groundwater banking projects, the existing CVC pumping plant infrastructure was improved to allow for water to be moved in both forward and reverse flow within the canal, and the forward flow pumping capacity increased to 922 cubic feet per second. This allowed the agency and CVC participants the ability to transfer water among local water districts, and provided groundwater banking projects the ability to not only receive increased supplies for recharge purposes, but also deliver recovered
groundwater to the aqueduct to meet local and statewide needs. Around 2004, the agency and the participants recognized the need to expand the CVC to increase supply reliability and to be able to receive excess surface water supplies from Millerton Lake above Fresno, FriantKern flood water and Article 21 excess water from the SWP. In 2005, the CVC Expansion Project began and was completed in 2012. The Expansion Project increased the CVC’s capacity to 1,422 cfs (or by approximately 54 percent). It also included the construction of new canal facilities and improvements to existing facilities, including:
Trent Taylor is a water resources planner with the Kern County Water Agency.
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ater leaders in Kern County have shown commitment to advanced and efficient infrastructure over the years, which has evolved into making local water operations a switching yard for water—moving, transferring and delivering water in the most cost-effective and efficient manner possible. “Early on, the Kern County Water Agency and its Cross Valley Canal participants made a strategic commitment to invest significant resources in the development of local infrastructure to support water movement and delivery,” said Kern County Water Agency (Agency) Board of Directors President Ted Page. “They understood the importance of long-term flexibility and knew it would have a positive impact on transporting water.” The Cross Valley Canal was constructed in 1975 to move State Water Project water supplies from the California Aqueduct to urban Bakersfield and to meet agricultural demands. The CVC spans a total of 21.5 miles. The first 17 miles are concrete lined to minimize water losses, while the remaining section is unlined to facilitate ongoing recharge. This represented incredible infrastructure, with the CVC connecting the aqueduct, local banking projects, and water districts, the agency’s Henry C. Garnett Water Purification Plant, Arvin-Edison Intake Canal and the
• Greater Bakersfield Turnout No. 2 – A bidirectional 500-cfs turnout that connects the aqueduct and the CVC. • The Cross Valley Canal / Friant-Kern Canal Intertie – A bidirectional 500-cfs facility that connects the CVC to the Central Valley Project’s Friant-Kern Canal and the Arvin-Edison Intake Canal. • Six new pumping plant facilities – Each pumping plant facility lifts water approximately 20 feet into the subsequent CVC pool. • Raising of canal levee and liner – The existing CVC levee and concrete liner was raised by approximately two feet throughout the lined portion of the CVC to accommodate the increased 500-cfs capacity. Over the past 38 years, the CVC has evolved into one of the most important water conveyance facilities in California. Initially designed as a forward flow facility for the movement of SWP supplies from the aqueduct into urban Bakersfield, the CVC now has the operational capability to move SWP water, CVP water, groundwater and Kern River supplies in both forward and reverse flow. Through the use of the expanded canal facilities and turnouts, the CVC has also been able to more strategically facilitate water transfers of surface and groundwater, and deliveries between local water districts and their purveyors.
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