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Chapter 10: A Long-term Commitment to Reliability
Resources has projected that by 2050, the
Sierra snowpack will decline by up to 40 per-
cent of its long-term historical average.
1
Rising
sea levels could damage water treatment and
water recycling plants, and cause saltwater
intrusion in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-
Delta. A major levee
failure in the Bay-Delta
could interrupt critical
water supplies from
that region. Droughts
may become more
frequent and more
intense. If they do,
demand for water
likely would rise at the
same ti
me that sup-
plies waned.
Given the magnitude
of the potential prob-
lems, the $1.5 billion Emergency Storage
Project is perhaps the most i
mportant element
of the Water Authority’s CIP. It provides a net-
work of new and enlarged reservoirs, pipelines
and facilities designed to store and move
water if a natural disaster or drought cuts off
i
mported supplies. After a decade of planning,
construction of the first facilities began in
2000.
When completed, the project will pro-
vide up to 90,100 acre-feet of local emer-
gency storage, enough to meet the county’s
needs for up to six months.
BUILDING NEW FACILITIES
The Capital I
mprovement Program touched all
parts of the county, modernizing and expand-
ing virtually every
aspect of the water
delivery system.
While each element
of the program is
i
mpressive in its
own right, the net
effect is greater
than the sum of the
parts. Together, the
investments provide
an unprecedented
amount of flexibility
for storing, treating
and distributing water regardless of how weath-
er conditions affect water availability.
The first
major new piece of
water infrastructure
to come online was Olivenhain Dam, situated in
the Elfin Forest Recreational
Reserve between
the cities of Escondido and Encinitas.
Completed in 2003, it was the region’s first big
dam in 50 years and the first roller-compacted
concrete dam built in California. It resulted from
The Emergency Storage Project’s network
of new and enlarged reservoirs, pipelines
and storage facilities
Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the Department of
Water Resources, regularly measures snow levels