Transcript for The Great Web of Water, segment 05 of 12


The Shasta Trinity Division stores most of the CVP water. Water moves from Clair Engle Lake to Lewiston Lake, then by tunnel to Whiskeytown Lake, then through a similar tunnel to Keswick Reservoir. From Shasta Lake, water is also released into Keswick. Just below Keswick Dam on the Sacramento River, the city of Redding is a customer for CVP water and electricity. Growing populations along the Sacramento receive an extra benefit from irrigation water now moving downstream. It keeps the river in full flow to help meet health and recreation needs during the long, hot summer.

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Twenty-seven miles below Redding, the Red Bluff Diversion Dam cuts out a share of the water for the Sacramento Canals Unit. At this point, the Corning Pumping Station and Canal provide irrigation to high levels of the Sacramento Valley. The same diversion also supplies the manmade spawning channels which provide a birthplace and nursery for young king salmon. They'll swim to the ocean, grow, and return here to spawn.

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The Tehama Colusa Canal brings irrigation water more than a hundred ten miles to two hundred thousand acres. Water goes through pipelines built as part of the project. Farmers pay for the pipelines as well as for the water itself. Ample water changes farming. This hayfield, once almost dry, is now planted with young fruit trees and beans. Beans provide income for the farmer and nitrogen for the growing trees. After CVP water reached this district, crop value per acre multiplied five times.

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