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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />I. INTRODUCTION <br />The Desalting Complex Unit is one of three components authorized under Title I <br />- Programs Downstream from Imperial Dam - of the Colorado River Basin Salillity Con/TOI <br />Ac/, Public Law 93-320 [I 8J, of June 24, 1974. The other two components of Title <br />I are the replacement of the first 49 miles of the Coachella Canal in California's Imperial <br />Valley with a concrete-lined canal (or lining the existing canal), an.l installation of well <br />fields in Arizona to extract ground water within 5 miles of the Arizona-Sonora border. <br />primarily on the Yuma Mesa. These latter two components are respectively identified as <br />the Coachella Canal Unit and the Protective and Regulatory Pumping Unit. <br />The Desalting Complex Unit will be comprised of both structural and nonslructural <br />measures to be implemented in the lower Gila and Colorado River valleys in southwestern <br />Arizona and northwestern Sonora, Mexico. Structural features include construction of the <br />world's largest membrane desalting plant (108.5-million-gallons-per-day (Mgal/d) production <br />capacity) near Yuma: a 50.7-mile long concrete-lineo bypass drain to carry plant reject <br />to the Santa Claro Slough in Mexico: replacement of a steel tlume section of the Main <br />Outlet Drain Extension (MODE) in Yuma with 3,49 I feet of buried concrete inverted <br />siphon (completed in 1976): and associated works such as access roads and bridges, electric <br />power transmission lines, continued operation of the currently operating Yuma Desalting <br />Test Facility, and acquisition of land and construction of works to mitigate oamages to <br />fish and wildlife habitat. <br />Nonstructural measures include the current Irrigation Efficiency Improvement Program <br />and acquisition of undeveloped and low irrigation efficiency land in the Wellton-Mohawk <br />Division of the Gila Project (operatcd by the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage <br />District [WMIDD]) to reduce the volume of irrigation orainage from the Division: ann <br />the possible acq uisition of land for tlood storage in. and modification of tloodwater release <br />schedules from, Painted Rock Reservoir, located on the Gila River about 60 river miles <br />upstream from the WelIton-Mohawk Division, in order to re,luce infiltration into the <br />Wellton-Mohawk aquifer. <br /> <br />. <br />