Friant-Kern Canal
The Friant-Kern Canal is a aqueduct managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation in Central California to convey water to augment irrigation capacity in Fresno, Tulare, and Kern counties. A part of the Central Valley Project, canal construction began in 1949 and was completed in 1951 at a cost of $60.8 million. The Friant-Kern Canal begins at the Friant Dam of Millerton Lake, a reservoir on the San Joaquin River north of Fresno, and flows south along the eastern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, ending at the Kern River near Bakersfield. In a typical year, it diverts almost all the flow of the San Joaquin River, leaving the river dry for about downstream. The Central Valley Project Delta-Mendota Canal replenishes the San Joaquin River at the town of Mendota, and replaces the volume of water being delivered by the Friant-Kern Canal. Average annual throughput is , with a high of in 2005, and a low of in 2015. In the past few years canal flows have been reduced due to river restoration projects requiring a greater release of water from the Friant Dam into the San Joaquin. The Friant-Kern Canal capacity is , gradually decreasing to at its terminus. The canal is built in both concrete-lined and unlined earth sections. It is up to wide at the top and is wide at the bottom of concrete segments, and wide in earth segments. Water depths range from . Introduction Friant-Kern canal delivers water to numerous districts, cities, and up to 15,000 family farms. The canal stems from the Friant Dam located in the Sierra Nevada foothills, near the town of Friant. Built by the Bureau of Reclamation, the dam reaches a height of 319 feet and a length of 3,488 feet storing approximately 520,500 acre feet of water. In addition to storing water, the dam produces renewable energy through a 25 MW power plant operated by Friant Power Authority. Friant-Kern canal combats issues such as subsidence by providing water from the wetter northernmost part of the state to incentivize farmers to pump less groundwater. The Friant-Kern canal is part of a much larger project called the Central Valley Project or CVP. This water infrastructure system was created for many reasons, one being to ease the detrimental affects associated with excess ground water pumping, particularly by farmers, and to also support the necessary economic development to withstand the massive influx of people entering the state, especially between the years 1920–1950. Central Valley Project The Central Valley Project was an ambitious project built to address many different problems affecting the state. The CVP was intended to reduce the impacts of flooding, provide water for varying purposes within the valley, distribute water to different urban centers around the region, generate electricity, and to aid in conservation efforts. The entire project consisted of 20 dams and reservoirs which collectively store about 12 million acre feet of water. Subsidence Subsidence is caused by excess or unsustainable removal of groundwater, typically below an aquitard or