It’s official: All-American Canal lining completed

From the Imperial Valley Press:

It was in the 1980s that Congress first authorized the lining of the All-American Canal.

It was 1994 when IID water manager Mike King first was assigned to the project. Construction didn’t start on the lining of the nearly century-old canal until June 2007, after a lawsuit that froze the process was lifted.

And Thursday, representatives and officials from the Imperial Irrigation District, San Diego County Water Authority, the Bureau of Reclamation, the California Department of Water Resources, Imperial County and multiple other agencies attended the official dedication of the newly finished canal.

“This project is the shining example of the good that can be done when you take something old and make it new again,” IID board President Jim Hanks said at the ceremony.

The lining on the 23-mile stretch of the canal is estimated to save about 67,700 acre-feet of water a year, which will be sent to San Diego County Water Authority and the tribes that make up the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority.

Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.

“A long strange lining it’s been” writes the Imperial Valley Press in this related story about the controversies and conflicts the project faced on this side of the border:

It seems that at one point or another, nearly every group within the Imperial Valley took issue with the All-American Canal-lining project, from local farmers, to Mexico, to Imperial County itself.

IID Director John Pierre Menvielle, speaking at the dedication ceremony for the canal-lining project Thursday, said the final completion of the project was “a very historic event.”

“We had a lot of hard work by a lot of people to get to this point in time,” Menvielle said.

Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.

So while it’s good news for some that the project is finished, not so for others.  Here’s what the Mexican president said about the project two years ago, which will have devastating affects for some on the other side of the border – click here.

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