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The workshop began at the Metropolitan Water District's Diemer Treatment Plant located above Yorba Linda, California. The site is elevated 830 feet to enhance gravity flow distribution to Los Angeles and Orange counties.We were first given an over view of the complexities associated with water, including treating, transporting and storing. Then we were taken on a tour of the treatment plant. The two most interesting areas of the treatment plant were the laboratory and the massive filtering system there at the site.

In the lab they have running valves with water as it is received from a number of sources to the plant. These valves run continuously which raised the question whether or not that water was trapped and conserved, The answer was no and the justification for letting it run continuously was so that the technicians would be able to test a reliable sample and not residue water in the pipe when the valve is closed.

The filtration system is just massive. Diemer is one of the largest filtration plants in the United States delivering up 400 million gallons of water per day. To put that in perspective, that is enough water to fill the Rose Bowl every hour. Amazingly, the filtration system does not vary a great deal from what you might do at home in say, a fish aquarium. Grates catch lager debris in the water, and coal and sand are used to filter out any smaller particles remaining in the water in through a process called coagulation. Chemical additives such as aluminum sulfite cling to microscopic particles in the water which form larger particles form called floc. These particles settle to the bottom in the sedimentation tanks. Then, filters of sand and coal remove the floc. Finally chlorine and ammonia are then used as disinfectants.

Later in the morning we boarded the bus and set off on our odyssey into the world of water. Our first site was Lake Matthews in Riverside County. Aqueduct water arrives at Lake Matthews through the Val Verde cut, a mile-long unlined canal. This is the only such section of canal on the system. This cut was highly desirable here because of high groundwater and considerable seepage inflow from all of the disintegrated granite in the area. Lake Matthews is located not far from Riverside Community College where I teach.

The next stop was the Eastside Reservoir just not under construction and will open next year. This area is located near Hemet and as a result of the reservoir project there will be a game reserve, various kinds of recreational facilities beyond water sports including ball fields, bike trails and picnic areas, and of course the water which will be open to swimming, fishing and larger water craft. Two stroke engine-water craft such as jet skis will not be allowed because they are not very fuel efficient. 65 per cent of the fuel is left in the water.

After departing the Eastside Reservoir, which will eventually be named after someone, the "Rolling College of Water Knowledge" headed east up-stream as the water flows downward west to the Los Angeles area. It is near Palm Springs where we saw the Mt San Jacinto Project. The water travels through Mt. San Jacinto via a tunnel that that was constructed with great difficulty. The original contractor found a severe active spring system within the mountain that halted the tunnel's construction. It was finished only after pumping out 40,000 gallons of water per minute at several different headings.

The next point of interest as we moved west is the Hinds Pumping Station. This plant lifts the water to its highest point as it moves toward the ocean (1,807 feet). From this point it is all down hill to the Los Angeles area. There is a dry lake located near Hinds that, at one time, was thought to be a possibility for a reservoir. However the area is too porous to hold water. It is believed that some modifications could be made to the lake bed if another reservoir is essential at some time in the future.East of Hinds following the subterranean water line was The Eagle Mountain pumping station. This plant boost the water just slightly less (438 ft) than at Hinds.

The bus stopped at La Quinta in Palm Springs for lunch. We ate at Morgan's restaurant. We were given specific instructions by Tom to make two loops around the salad bar because it was different on both sides. The lunch was great and all of us wished we could have stayed a bit longer here at the resort, but water was waiting and we needed to move on.

Finally we approached Blythe and the Colorado River. We crossed the river to the Arizona side and traveled north across Indian Reservation land belonging to the Chemehueva, Hopi, Mojave and Navajo. Tom explained some of the history of the region. I thought the most interesting was that it was in this area that the Poston Japanese Internment Camp was set up during World War II. There are still some structures standing there on the site. I have read about this place and new is was somewhere in the Southwest but I did not know where. I have been in this are many times since I attended college at Arizona State University, but it was not until this tour that I learned anything of relative importance about the area.

We stopped the at Mac's and everyone got off because no one was able to agree on what spirits that should be bought and brought back to the compound for the weekend. After everyone made their selections it was off for the last leg of the trip for Friday to the Gene Compound. It was here that we lodged for two nights.

The Gene Visitor Center includes a guest facility, a dormitory for employees and several recreation facilities including softball, tennis and horseshoes. Meals are served in the dining hall...in some ways the whole environment kind of reminds you of a summer camp. It was the base of operations for our pump inspection tour. In fact, there is a reservoir and pump station on the grounds.

Saturday morning we were awakened by a very loud horn and called to breakfast, Shortly after we boarded the bus for the Copper Basin Reservoir. This is a pristine body of water located above the Colorado River and is isolated from boaters, swimmers or any other kind of recreation. In addition to being one of the most serene places I have been too, it is the home to a mating pair of American Bald Eagles. We were fortunate enough to see one perched on a cliff high above the water. It gave me chills! I don't think that I have ever seen one in the wild.

The group was taken out to the dam in an old WW II Troop Mover similar to those used in the Normandy Invasion of occupied France. I had never been in one of those either. There was only one sign of human intrusion to this beautiful canyon and that was the caretakers home provided by Metropolitan Water District. It sits right on the shoreline. It would not take much to hire me to take care of this lake knowing where I was going to be able to live.

After we left Copper Basin we returned to the Gene compound for what would be a very serious discussion led by Tom Lovel and Jerry King on the political, social and economic issues surrounding water, and what those of us in our group can do to help resolve some of them which dramatically effect our access to this most precious resource. To the Metropolitan Water District, this discussion is critical because it educated tour participants as to the important issues about water. I don't think are group was aware of the importance placed on this part of the tour. The discussion began with Tom and then continued with Jerry.

Tom explained that there are basically four sources of water. Those are local ground water, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the Colorado River Aqueduct and finally the California State Water Project.

One problem with local ground water is much of it has become contaminated in one way or another from contaminants that have seeped into the ground from above or within. Some estimates are  that 40 percent of the local ground water is unfit for human consumption.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct is under constant litigation. Those law suits are usually lost outright by Southern California or settled outside of court. Metropolitan Water now purchases 40-45 per cent of its water from the California Aqueduct which is up from 12-15 per cent.

The state of Arizona sued to gain a larger share of the water of the Colorado River. The case was eventually decided by the United States Supreme Court which ruled that the long standing " first in time...first in right" was unconstitutional. That ruling essentially said to California that they needed to develop their own vast water resources in the state rather than rely on the Colorado River to meet all of its water needs. As a result of the decision, 660 acre feet of water was lost to Arizona .

There are now six states and Mexico claiming water from the Colorado. The Upper basin states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming split 14 million acre of feet of water with the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada. Mexico was just awarded 1.5 million acre feet of water. This now has put the demand for Colorado River water beyond what it can produce by approximately 1 million acre feet of water for the first time.

The State Water Project manages water from the San Joaquin Delta and water is pumped down the middle of the state through the California Aqueduct. The Metropolitan Water District purchases about 2 million acre feet of water from the State Water project each year.

The Northern California Delta region was/is an inverted delta. Unlike the Mississippi River Delta where fresh water floods into the ocean. Ocean waters flood back into what is now known as the San Joaquin Delta with the tides. There were mountains that prevented the salt water from reaching fertile lands of the valleys. However, much of that mountainous terrain was washed away by the by those mining for gold in the early settlement days of California. Later, when the Chinese immigrants living in and around the San Francisco area wanted to farm the land in the valleys, they were forced to pump water out of the area and constructed levies to keep the salt water back.

Today those levies still exist, and actually serve as reservoirs for much of the water used in the Project. The levies are now slowly crumbing under the pressure because they were not originally constructed to store water. This is one major problem with  the Delta region as a water source for Southern California. Another is that the pumps through out the aqueduct are often turned off and remain off for long periods of time. This can occur, for example,  when there are endangered species of fish found in the aqueduct or for a myriad of other reasons. Still another problem is the shipping lanes that have been trenched in both the Sacramento River and The San Joaquin Rivers. Ocean-going vessels bring "bilge pollution" as well as non-native plants and fish to the region. Finally and perhaps the biggest problem is that the existing reservoirs can store only enough water to meet the need for a single year. This makes the entire system extremely vulnerable to drought.

Tom pointed out that there are really three stakeholders in water provided by the California State Water Project. Those are; agriculture, urban water users and the environmentalist groups. Obviously these groups have fewer common interests than conflicting interests. As an alternative to allowing the Federal Government to come in and mange California's water resources, the three groups decided to try to work together to meet the goals of each. A state agency called the "CALFED" was then formed as the means to accomplish that task.

With the formation of the CALFED, the "Peripheral Canal" (an isolated water facility to make more efficient use of the delta water source) is back "on the table". There has been consensus reached with CALFED that such a facility is required and now the public at large must be educated on its benefits to the entire state, not just Southern California.

One misconception held by the public. particularly in Northern California is that the isolated facility would be used to move more water from north to south. According to Tom, its primary use will be to facilitate the blending the organics out of the delta water and the salt out of the Colorado River water. In essence using relying either of those water sources less....not more.

"conserved water"...trapped or reused water

"tail water"...water that could have been conserved but was not

Jerry King in his presentation brought up the issue of "water marketing". This is a practice of groups buying up large amounts land in order to secure the water rights and then instead of developing the land, simply sell the water for profit. The State Resources Board has been asked to look into a situation that exists in the Imperial Valley east of San Diego. To fully understand this phenomenon, you must know that water is a subsidized resource The government budgets money to water agencies like the Metropolitan Water District so that rates to the consumer can be lower. When groups buy land for the sole purpose of securing the water rights.....they are getting the water at that same reduced rate.

In the case of San Diego, there is little or no ground water. The city is completely reliant on its allotment from the Metropolitan Water District to meet the consumer demands for water. Without any additional sources of water other the MWD, the demand can easily exceed the supply. Groups acquiring the rights to water in Imperial County for the purpose of reselling it to the City of San Diego are making a profit on subsidized water. The people of San Diego who pay for that purchased water are not only paying a higher price, but they have paid the subsidy on that water as well. Clearly this is wrong. Jerry pointed out that there is a big difference between selling water that has been "conserved" and water that has been acquired through a land deed.

The Metropolitan Water District is spending millions trying to develop a practical way to desalinate sea water. It is possible that the energy required to desalinate water could be generated by the heat produced at coastal power plants similar to the one near where I live in Huntington Beach. Obviously if these plants could be fueled by heat, there would be no pollution and the costs associated with transporting the water would be minimal since these power plants already are in close proximity to the ocean.

Jerry closed his remarks with this point. Contrary to the perception held by many in Northern California that water users in Southern California waste water, the facts indicated that water demand here has decreased by 700 million acre feet since the drought just a few years ago. This has been accomplished through both conservation efforts such as replacing old toilets with more water efficient ones, as well as water  reclamation projects.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Lake Havasu Pumping Station and the Parker Dam facility. It was at the Lake Havasu Facility that we had a chance to learn some things about the automation behind the pumping and to inspect closely the enormous equipment used to pump this water through the aqueduct. On the way back to Parker Dam we stopped to view the Central Arizona Project Intake. There really was not much to see. The facility was completely underground in as to minimize the intrusion on the desert environment. Due to security risks, we were not allowed to tour the power facility there at Parker Dam. We were cofine to the views supported by the structure. Later in the afternoon we returned to the Gene compound for some rest and relaxation before dinner. After dinner there was time for all of us to just sit down and discuss some of the issues that we had been informed of earlier in the day. The horn, we knew would come early Sunday morning, and most were off to sleep early.

On the way home we made several interesting stops. The first was along the inspection road at the Frieda Inverted Siphon. A siphon is where the water must cross a low area such as a wash or river bed. There are 144 of these throughout the system and they cover 29 miles. At this point the water rushes downward and flows underneath until it reaches the other side of the dry river bed. I noticed that just before the water heads into the pipes to rush downward, there are ropes dangling from a cable stretched across the canal. These are to be used to grab onto should someone be in the canal. If they were to enter the siphon, they would most likely drown because there is no air pocket within the pipes.

Later, we stopped at The General George S. Patton Museum. This was an interesting stop because it was the first stop on the tour that did not focus on water or something associated with water. Patton, in order to get troops ready for the war in North Africa, set up a training facility out in the desert. The museum told the story of that facility and had many artifacts on display from that time including tanks and other heavy artillery. There was also a topographical map that was constructed by a team of Metropolitan Water employees on display here. We were told about it on the bus, but until you get in front of it, you really can not appreciate the detail that this map displays of the terrain Southern California. From the desert to the sea... it was impressive.

The last stop before arriving home, other lunch at the Sizzler in Indio, was the Eagle Mountain Pumping Station. We really didn't stay here long. It was more of just rest stop. What was interesting about the stop was this little community of Metropolitan Water employeees exists out here in the middle of the desert. We were talking amongst ourselves, trying to imagine what our lives would be like if we lived in such an isolated place. We all agreed that you would have to get used to it!

This trip was very interesting in that it was more educational than informational. It was important to the MWD that we learn about the issues concerning water and from their perspective, how these issues can best be resolve. This is the first workshop that we have had, where the presenters clearly had expectations of our class. That expectation was to help educate others not only about water as a resource, but how MWD feels that the resource should be managed.

As convincing as they were on the resolution of many of these issues, our class must keep in mind that we have only gained insight through the perspective of the MWD. It can be certain that there are other perspectives that are desrving of our time and consideration as well. My thanks to the MWD for a most informative experience.