SRP Arizona Canal Dry-up Starts Jan. 8
SRP’s ‘Smallest Employees’ are Relocated and Items Removed That Don’t Belong in Canals
WHAT:
Portions of the Arizona Canal on the north side of the Salt River will be drained from Jan. 8 to Feb. 7 for annual maintenance and construction activities from Mesa Drive to Recker Road between Camelback and Chaparral.
Crews will inspect the canals, remove silt, replace concrete lining and repair gates along a stretch of seven to eight miles of the Arizona Canal located in Scottsdale and on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. They will also remove items that have been illegally thrown into the canal.
Signage will be posted where there will be increased construction traffic and portions of the canal will be closed to traffic including bikes and pedestrians.
Some of SRP’s northside irrigation customers will not receive water from the canals during the dry-up.
SRP is responsible for keeping its 131-mile canal system in operating condition during normal water deliveries to more than 2 million Valley residents. Each fall and winter, SRP performs dry-ups on portions of the canal system on a rotating 10-year schedule.
Canal dry-ups allow SRP as well as other utilities and municipalities to perform construction and maintenance activities in and around the canals. SRP crews also will use the dry-up to examine the canals and underwater structures to look for evidence of invasive adult quagga mussels.
VISUALS:
Crews will be in the canal from Saturday, Jan. 8 to Wednesday, Jan. 12 using large nets to herd SRP’s “smallest employees,” the white amur fish. The fish will be loaded onto hauling tanks that will move them to other portions of the canal system. The weed-eating, white amur fish, are used by SRP to control aquatic vegetation in its 131-mile Valley canal system.
Front loaders and heavy equipment will be used to pull silt, trash and dirt from the Arizona Canal and move it to large dump trucks throughout the dry-up. Crews can provide details on the oddest items pulled from the canals while stressing the importance of keeping the canals clean and safe.
Reporters are welcome to tour the fish herding and canal dry-up process. Contact: Patty Garcia-Likens at (602) 245-0047.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving more than 1 million customers. SRP is also the metropolitan area’s largest supplier of water, delivering about 750,000 acre-feet annually to municipal, urban and agricultural water users.