This canal outage is a big, big deal. PG&E’s Bear River Canal is the main artery for supplying water to most of Western Placer County. If PG&E’s estimate of not beginning construction until the second week of July is accurate, we could be in a world of hurt. Dave Breninger, the Agency’s general manager, calls this, “a dire, catastrophic situation.” Treated water customers could be required to cut way back on water use, and raw water customers could see the ditches go dry. And that’s with all of PCWA’s infrastructure operating without a glitch.
PG&E is not allowing workers into the site of the canal break for fear of additional land-slides. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is learned paranoia from doing business in California, but it’s hard to argue with their message of, “it’s not worth putting our workers at risk.”
A helicopter is being used to lower geo-technical survey equipment into the site to determine what the soil conditions are at the canal failure and the surrounding areas. We’re told that once the conditions are better known they’ll be able to give us a more detailed time-table for the fix.
Cross your fingers that PG&E’s estimate of beginning construction well into July is just PR to make them look good when they finish the job in June; but start getting ready for a dry summer in case they’re telling the 
truth.
Our board will be conducting a public meeting soon to determine what steps the agency needs to ask or require of our customers to get through this. We will discuss: Who won’t be getting water? How large a reduction in delivery should customers expect? How much water do our customers need to conserve? What can/should the agency do if voluntary conservation measures are ineffective? The meeting will be held in the evening in a venue large enough for a sizable crowd, a tentative date was set for May 10th at 5:30pm.
You can see pictures and read updates posted to the agency’s site here: http://pcwa.net/level2/bear_river_canal_outage.html
Filed under: Placer County Water Agency
