Old water system getting upgrades

The system that brings drinking water to residents of Angels Camp, Murphys and some of the smaller communities in between took root in the area’s mining days.

More recently, however, the Utica Power Authority has been charged with bringing the historic system in line with modern technological advances.

At the Hunter’s Reservoir dam near Hathaway Pines, UPA workers were hand-cranking the mechanism to open and close spillways and allow for the release of more or less water at the beginning of the system, which winds its way west for 28 miles to the New Melones Reservoir.
 

About two years ago, an automated spillway was completed, according to Mitch Pyle, the authority’s generation and compliance manager.

In a small outbuilding near the dam, Eric Threlkeld, lead electrician and control systems technician, monitors flows and other conditions at the 80-year-old dam with a desktop computer that lets him know “virtually what every gallon of water in the (reservoir) is doing and where it’s going.”

The wooden flumes that carry the water downhill have a historic designation, Pyle said, and thus, when a section of the flumes were damaged earlier this decade by the Darby Fire, they had to be re-constructed the same way, rather than with concrete or metal pipes.

That the ditches and flumes         were constructed with picks, shovels and mules is impressive to Pyle, who said even nowadays, making repairs with power tools and using GPS data to make plans can be a serious chore.

The water system began in 1852 by the Utica Water Co. to bring water down to the Utica Mine. An experimental powerhouse was added in 1895, according to UPA historical records. It was the fourth of its kind constructed in California and eighth west of the Rocky Mountains.

Two powerhouses make up the system’s hydroelectric generation capacity currently. Inside the Murphys Powerhouse, old and new mingle yet again as a wall inside the building houses an overwhelming set of switches that looks like something out of a 1950s-era atomic facility.

According to Pyle, “It looks like an old battleship but the real power comes ... from the DCS,” or distributed control system, which includes a much smaller and newer yellow-lit digital display to be found amidst the black-and-white mess of switches that are no longer in use.

Further upgrades are planned for the next five years, Pyle said, including a much-desired set of new, small hydroplants west of the Murphys Afterbay Dam.

“Hydroplants use a small amount of water to make electricity and are super-efficient,” Pyle said. “We produce renewable energy (so) we want to build off that and produce more renewable energy.”

The agency’s ability to maintain and upgrade its system is funded by its sale of hydroelectric power to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., as well as the sale of “green certificates” as a renewable power generator.

The main function of the UPA, however, is to provide water to its constituent agencies, the Union Public Utility District and the city of Angels Camp, Pyle said.

Fourteen irrigation users are also supplied by the system.