California Lifts Self by Own Water Bootstraps

Document: Los Angeles Times, California Lifts Self by Own Water Bootstraps, 10-31-63 (photocopy)California Lifts Self by Own Water Bootstraps La. Times 10-31-63 BY ROBERT M. BLANCHARD Times Sacramento Bureau Chief With all the interest being centered on water these days, now might be as good a time as any to take another look at the Oroville Dam and the state's $1.75 billion Feather River Project. Gov. Brown did just that the other day. Accompanied by Mrs. Brown and officials of the state department of water resources, he made a "hard hat" inspection of the construction work going on around Oroville, a Sierra Nevada foothill community some 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. "Hard hat," of course, refers to the fact the group went into areas where workmen and visitors alike are required to wear metal helmets for their protection. The governor found the tour well worth taking since it was his first visit to the dam site since Oct. 12, 1962, when he touched off a dynamite blast signating the start of the construction of the dam, the key feature in the huge Feather River Project. What the governor, saw was quite impressive. * He stood at the bottom of the Feather River canyon near the concrete core of the huge earthfill dam and looked up at towering peaks on both sides of the river which will mark the 735-ft. high top of the dam when it is completed some time in May, 1968. This is as high as a 61-story building. He saw the foot of a mountain being chewed away for the site of a power plant that will be used to turn the water stored by the dam into electrical energy. And he saw some marvels of modern engineering. There is the 12-mile-long railroad over which two 2,500-h.p. diesel-electric engines pull 40-cartrains loaded with 4,400 tons of gold dredge tailings from an area south of town to the dam site. This, incidentally, is the first time these tailings, an eyesore left over from gold dredging operations in the area between 1898 and 1918, have been used in the construction of a major dam and will result in cleaning up some 5,500 acres of land. These tailings are loaded into gondola cars from overhead chutes atop a tunnel. Ten cars are loaded at a time, each with 110 tons of fill, at a rate of 14 minutes for a 40-car train. These cars are unloaded with equal rapidity near the dam site by a huge rotary complex which simply overturns, and rights again, two cars at a time in 80 seconds. From here, the material is carried by a series of conveyor belts to various stockpiling areas at speeds. ranging over 19 m.p.h., or 12,000 tons an hour. These stockpiles will enable the workmen to keep going for more than a day in the event a power fallure or equipment breakdown should slow, or cut off, their supply of material from the borrowing area 12 miles away. All told, it's a marvel of modern engineering. When the Feather River project was conceived and finally authorized Californians thought they had their water problems solved for the time being. But hardly had the project gotten underway when the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona is entitled to some 1 million acre feet of Colorado River water heretofore belonging to California and Secretary Udall broached his controversial Southwest Pacific Water Plan which further endangers California's supply. But fortunately for the foresight of the water experts-and the people of California who authorized their projects-the Golden State is not going to be hurt as badly as it might have been. As it turned out, the timing of the Supreme Court decision and the Udall plan with the construction stage of the Feather River Project gives the engineers approximately a year to revise their plans so as to replace Arizona's million acre-feet allotment from the Colorado River to Southern California from the Feather River. * This does not include enlarging the dam or its 3,484,000 acre-foot reservoir, but rather the delivery facilities which will carry the water south through the central valleys and over the Tehachapis to the thirsty Southland. While this has been going on, other water experts have stepped up their studies of ways and means of diverting and utilizing water now going to waste in the north coastal region of the state. The biggest stumbling block undoubtedly will be money. At one point on the tour, Brown turned to his group and commented: "You know, you can't look at projects such as these as spending. They're investments in California's future." And he was right. But California, with only token assistance from the federal government, already is saddled with a $1.75 billion debt for the construction of the Feather River Project and undoubtedly will need some form of federal assistance in the future if it is to keep pace with its growing demands. * Being the No. 1 state in the nation is a costly business.Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 2,538,127 byte