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CALIFORNIA'S WATER PROJECT By WILLIAM R. GIANELLI, Director Department of Water RlSo~rC8s The Resources Agency State of California The State of California is larger than many nations in the world. Its population is larger, and its resources are of greater magnitude and wider variety than those of other lands. Small wonder, then, that California's State Water Project is vast in scope - - - the greatest engin- eering undertaking of its kind in history. Seven years have passed since the basic financing of the State Water Project was approved by the State's voters. The Project is now rapidly approaching the operation stage. We will deliver project water to the areas of need in the San Joaquin Valley next year, to Los Angeles County in 1971, and to San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in 1972.. I would like to emphasize one point here today: California's State Water Project, which will take 4,230,000 acre-feet of water annually from the areas of surplus in the northern part of the State to the areas of need in the southern areas, is in itself a regiOJ'1a1 project. No state in. the Union has initiated a water transportation project on a comparable scale. No state in the Union has gone so far in an effort to solve its water problems, employing the method of taking water supplied hundreds of miles to the centers of population. The immediate "tomorrow" involving the water deliveries I have mentioned is not all that is involved.. In California, we are looking ahead, past the year 1990, after which the facilities of the State Water Project - - - Oroville Dam and the series of storage reservoirs and pumping plants along the Cal- ifornia Aqueduct - - - are not expected to be adequate to satisfy the demands of the ever-expanding population of California. We have already conducted intensive studies of the North Coastal rivers, which provide the last major source of water for export use in California. Unless we obtain additional water from some other source for Southern California before many years have passed, full development of this region\~ water resources will become an immediate "must". Everything that has been accomplished in our Stat~ thus far has been made possible by the ef- forts of state, federal, and local agencies, led by far-seeing citizens who recognize water's vital role in the State's growth and prosperity. The basic factor which has made this possible is the California Water Plan, completed by the State Department of Water Resources in May 1957. The State Water Project, originally called the Feather River Project, was an integral part of this over all plan. Major objective of the State Water Project is delivery of water to the areas of need. Costs of Project allocable to water supply will be repaid, with interest, to the State by 31 agencies which have executed contracts for the project water. Eight powerplants will generate electric power, with the output of the Oroville-Thermalito complex to be sold to private utilities. Twenty dams, 2() reservoirs, and 21 pumping plants are in- cluded in the Project. Drainage facilities to remove agricultural waste from the San Joaquin Valley are also author- ized, with costs to be repaid by the users. Pending adoption of a workable method of repayment, con- struciton of this agricultural drain has been postponed. Nonreimbursable features of the State Water Project include flood control, with participation -28-