| Project Detail |
In 2006, the Department of the Interior, the Friant Water Users Authority, and a coalition of plaintiffs led by Natural Resources Defense Council finalized the San Joaquin Settlement Agreement (Settlement) which resolved an 18-year lawsuit between the federal government, irrigation and municipal water contractors, and environmental organizations, over flows in the San Joaquin River in California. In 2009, Congress enacted legislation to approve the Settlement through the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act, Subtitle A of Title X of P.L. 111-11. The San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP), http://www.restoresjr.net, is a collaborative and cooperative effort among individual land owners, nongovernmental environmental organizations, water users, and state and federal agencies that has been established to implement the Settlement. Settlement goals include restoration of 153 miles of the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam and restoring a self-sustaining Chinook salmon fishery in the river. The Settlement will also reduce or avoid adverse water supply impacts and provide greater water supply security to approximately 15,000 family farms within the Friant Water District. A key structural improvements project within the SJRRP is the Arroyo Canal Fish Screen and Sack Dam Fish Passage Project. The Department of Interiors Bureau of Reclamation and the Henry Miller Reclamation District No. 2131 (HMRD) are working to install a fish screen on the Arroyo Canal to prevent entrainment of juvenile Chinook salmon in the canal and modify Sack Dam to allow for fish passage around the structure. This project is in Fresno and Madera Counties, about seven miles southeast of Dos Palos, California. Sack Dam is located on the San Joaquin River in the western region of the San Joaquin Valley and is HMRDs sole diversion for delivering irrigation water into the Arroyo Canal. The project includes completing the National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act process including the preparation of an Environmental Assessment/Initial Study (EA/IS) and obtaining all permits and clearances necessary to construct a new 700 cubic feet per second vee configuration profile bar fish screen in the canal and a new dam and fish passageway adequate to pass salmon and other fish. |
