by Timothy Rutt
County officials are looking to help recharge local aquifers by constructing a water pipe that will cut through Altadena from the Devil's Gate Dam to Eaton Canyon.
The plan will capture approximately 4,500 acre/feet of water per year, saving water valued at $3.3 million, a county spokewoman told the Altadena Town Council Tuesday night.
Alma Fuentes of the county flood control district told the council that the five-mile-long pipeline, currently in the conceptual phase, will cost $16.7 milion, with construction estimated to start in 2016.
Fuentes said that water captured during heavy rains by Devil's Gate Dam, in Pasadena west of Altadena, is gradually released into the Arroyo Seco and eventually into the ocean. At the same time, the area's Raymond Basin aquifer -- which supplies drinking water -- is running dry. The pipeline project is a plan to capture most of the 6.900 acre/feet of water that would be sent into the ocean and use it to recharge the aquifer instead.
The Devil's Gate Dam Water Conservation Project will pump water from the Devil's Gate reservoir through a pipeline that will run along Woodbury Road to Lake Avenue, dogleg north to New York Drive, and continue east to the Eaton Canyon wash and spreading grounds east of Altadena.
Fuentes said that this project has no relationship with the current controversial plan to remove massive amounts of sediment from behind the dam in the Hahamongna Watershed.
Fuentes said that he cost of the project would be borne with district flood control funds and state Proposition 1E funds.
