Sheep Creek Water Company is fortunate not to need water from the aqueduct. There have been times in the past when the company thought about purchasing aqueduct water, when water supply was really low. Even though the aqueduct runs right through the northern part of Phelan, we don’t use the water, but communities around us definitely do from time-to-time, especially down the hill.
This article is also of note, because the record-breaking amount of snow in the mountains is sure to cause other infrastructure problems. Hopefully it means the Sheep Creek tunnel really starts running at maximum capacity as the melt water seeps through the ground, but there could be issues this year with flooding, mudslides, and other such phenomena as the snow melts. That said, this is an old company with old infrastructure, just like the aqueduct. Something to keep an eye on for sure.
‘We’ve lost the aqueduct’: How severe flooding threatens a Los Angeles water lifeline
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-03-25/eastern-sierra-flooding-threatens-los-angeles-water-lifeline
(alternative link): https://archive.is/G5VdJ
“We’ve lost the aqueduct!” a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power inspector told his superiors by cellphone. As he spoke, chocolate-colored runoff and debris undercut the aqueduct just west of Highway 395 and the community of Olancha.
It was the first time in history that the 200-mile aqueduct had been breached by extreme weather, threatening water deliveries to 4 million ratepayers in Los Angeles.
It was also an indication of just how difficult it would be to defend the waterway against torrential runoff from a winter of near record snowpack. For weeks, DWP crews had been using heavy equipment and other means to control the anticipated spring runoff, but even longtime aqueduct workers were shocked by the suddenness of the break.
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The DWP’s system is starting to show signs of age. In recent years, several stretches of the aqueduct system have been drained to allow replacement of cracked and bulging sections of century-old concrete.
Since severe storms began lashing the eastern Sierra region in January, the DWP has been relying on tactical strategies developed during epic rainfall that ended a five-year drought in 2017.
DWP crews are racing to clean out clogged culverts, divert excessive runoff into pasturelands and sage plains, and build berms to steer flood water from small towns straddling U.S. Highway 395 including Olancha, Cartago, Lone Pine, Big Pine and Bishop.azing at snow-clad Sierra peaks to the west, Perez said, “If all that snow comes down hot and heavy when the weather warms up, the challenge will be to protect Owens Valley’s communities from flooding.”