SCH Number 2024050686

Project Info

Title

EL DORADO IRRIGATION DISTRICT FIVE-YEAR CONSERVED WATER TRANSFER PROJECT

Description

The El Dorado Irrigation District (EID) plans to transfer up to 740 acre-feet (AF) annually of its pre-1914 water right water to Westland’s Water District (WWD). The proposed project includes potential annual transfers of conserved water from 2024 – 2028. In the spring of 2022, EID completed construction of the Upper Main Ditch Piping Project (piping project). The piping project involved converting the earthen unlined Upper Main Ditch that delivered water from El Dorado Forebay to the Reservoir 1 Water Treatment Plant to a piped conveyance (Main Pipeline). The water made available for transfer is water that was previously lost through evaporation and seepage from the Upper Main Ditch and is now conserved through operation of the Main Pipeline. Under the proposed project, EID’s diversions from the South Fork American River (SFAR) at the El Dorado Diversion Dam will not change. The same amount of water will be diverted into the El Dorado Canal and conveyed to the El Dorado Forebay. However, because EID is able to meet the same customer consumptive demands as they did prior to the pipeline project with less water, the conserved water would either remain instream in the SFAR or be used for non-consumptive hydropower production and then returned into the SFAR and flow into Folsom Reservoir. From Folsom Reservoir, the conserved water would be re-regulated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for delivery to WWD for use in their service area south of the Delta. The actual transfer quantity of conserved water will depend on hydrologic conditions and consumptive demand patterns leading up to and during the transfer period; however, the quantity will not exceed 740 AF annually during 2024 – 2028.

2 documents in project