Contract awarded for Pinto Dam project
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation/Courtesy photo<br> An aerial photo shows a pre-construction view of the Pinto Dam outlet works repair and Brook Lake weir in Grant County. A $629,047 contract was awarded this week for improvements to the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.
COLUMBIA BASIN — Improvements to Pinto Dam in the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project are expected to start after the first of the year.
To perform the work, a $629,047 contract was awarded this week to M.J. Hughes Construction, of Gresham, Ore., the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced.
The project was paid for with federal stimulus funds.
The work means irrigators in the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District will have a more reliable source of feed water for their supply, explained Craig Simpson, manager of the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District in Othello.
“If the East District has a problem, it could affect the water supply for the South District. It will provide the South District a supply that’s not reliant on the East District’s canal,” he said.
It’s more comfortable for the east district not to run at peak all the time, Simpson says.
With the future work, if a storm causes water fluctuation in the canal, it’s more able to absorb that impact.
The changes to Pinto Dam involve the building of an energy dissipater, shaping and strengthening the stilling basin at the base of Pinto Dam, and construction of a concrete outlet at Brook Lake, according to the bureau.
“This construction project will ensure that this vital infrastructure in the Columbia Basin Project continues to operate reliably and will provide benefits for future generations to come,” stated Reclamation Commissioner Michael L. Connor.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar provided comments.
“With its investments of Recovery Act funds, the Department of the Interior and its bureaus are putting people to work today to make improvements that will benefit the environment and the region for many years to come,” Salazar stated.
Jim Blanchard, special projects officer with Reclamation’s Ephrata office, said the work will take about six months to complete.
He explained the weir’s construction gives Reclamation a place to actually measure the amount of water coming out of the dam.
“It gives us a bunch of operational flexibility we’ve never had before,” Blanchard commented.
Reclamation will be able to put water in the Potholes Reservoir year round, which wasn’t possible with the original route, he said.