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Water in our semiarid San Diego County is hard to come by. In fact, most of the water we use (up to 90 percent of it) travels from Northern California and the Colorado River through hundreds of miles of aqueducts and pipelines. A prolonged drought or earthquake damage could prevent imported water from reaching us.
The San Diego County Water Authority's Emergency Storage Project will protect the San Diego region from potential disruptions to the imported water delivery system by increasing the amount of water stored locally. New emergency water storage and pipeline connections will enable water to continue to flow throughout the region even if the imported water supply is interrupted.
Several components of the Emergency Storage Project are located in Lakeside, at San Vicente Reservoir. Currently, construction is under way for the San Vicente Pipeline project, an 11-mile-long tunneled pipeline connecting San Vicente Reservoir to the Water Authority's aqueduct system. Pumping facilities and smaller pipelines to connect everything together are also under construction.
The final phase of the Emergency Storage Project is the San Vicente Dam Raise project, which involves raising the height of San Vicente Dam by at least 54 feet to increase the amount of water stored at the reservoir. An environmental study is nearly complete that examines the impacts of raising the dam higher to store additional water as part of the Carryover Storage Project. Carryover storage is a process of collecting water during wet years when it is plentiful, keeping it in storage, and carrying it over for use in subsequent dry years when there is a shortage. This project will be considered for certification by the Water Authority's board in April. If approved, the dam would be raised an additional 63 feet for a total increase of 117 feet. After the raise, San Vicente Reservoir will be able to store an additional 152,000 acre-feet of water. This is enough water for more than 40 percent of San Diego County's population for one year.
Construction of the San Vicente Dam Raise project is scheduled to begin in 2009 and will take about four years. To assure public safety during construction, the reservoir will be closed to boating, fishing, and all other water recreation. The reservoir's water level will be lowered starting in mid-2008, prior to the beginning of construction, and the reservoir will close as soon as the water level no longer reaches the boat launch ramp. San Vicente Reservoir will reopen to recreation after construction sometime between 2014 and 2017, as soon as the water level reaches the new boat launch. The amount of time needed to refill the reservoir will depend on water supply and demand.
If you'd like to learn more about the Emergency Storage Project, please visit the Water Authority's website at www.sdcwa.org and click on the "Infrastructure" and then "Emergency Storage Project" links. There, you'll find access to a five-minute video explaining the project as well as details about each of the construction components. For
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