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Show A ..' ' i y , - - . if r r ' A general view of the Frlant-Kern canal which carries central valley project water 153 miles from Friant dam near Fresno to the Kern river near Bakcrsfield. Concrete lining of the canal was completed recently, leaving only bridges and other structures to be finished before the full Integrated operation of CVP begins In July. The canal has a capacity of 4,000 cubic feet of water per second. a A A A THE 'BIG DITCH' 153 Mile Friant-Kern Canal Will Irrigate Dry San Joaquin Valley The latest step toward putting the California central valley project into operation this summer was the completion of the concrete lining work on the 153 mile man-made river the Friant-Kern canal which will cost an estimated $60,000,000. With the exception of some work on siphons and bridges, the brief ceremony marked completion of the waterway which by exchange will bring water from Shasta reservoir, nearly 500 miles to the north to the parched farm lands of southern San Joaquin valley. Of the eight initlaUy authorized features of the vast central valley project, only two the Delta Cross channel and the Delta-Dendota canal and its pumping station remain to be completed. Both are scheduled for operation before July when the mass movement of water from the snow capped watershed draining into Shasta reservoir to the Kern river near Bakersfield will begin. The bureau of reclamation's construction con-struction engineer for the project, S. S. Leonard, hailed the event as a fitting climax to 50 years of hopes and planning. "Fifty years ago the men who talked of completing this great canal were called impractical dreamers. Yet today we are only a few months from the time when water stored in Millerton lake behind be-hind Friant dam can eventually serve 624,000 acres," he said. Still to be cor pleted are the distribution systems by which Friant-Kern water will be delivered deliv-ered to the irrigation districts served by the canal. These systems, sys-tems, to be constructed mainly of concrete pipe, will cost more than $70,000,000. Work on several sev-eral districts already Is underway. under-way. Work started on the canal in September Sep-tember of 1945. Portions of the "big ditch", which carries 4,000 cubic feet of water per second down the east side of the San Joaquin valley, were in use as early as 1948. Because of the nearly unprecedented unprece-dented scope of the job, special equipment was used by several of the contractors. Huge dragline excavating ex-cavating machines roughed out the canal trench. Then came the trimmer, trim-mer, which cut the bottom and sides to grade and to a smooth surface. Following the trimmer, and running run-ning on the same rails beside the trench, was a complicated mechanism me-chanism known as the slip form, which placed the concrete lining as it rolled slowly along. Attached to the slip form were the finishing and painting "jumbos". In the wake of these huge machines, was the finished product concrete placed, finished complete with expansion joints and painted. Workmen above put finishing touches on the Little Dry creek siphon which carries waters of the Friant-Kern canal under the stream bed on its way south from Friant dam near Fresno to the thirsty crop lands of the southern San Joaquin valley. Rural life Is intertwined with city life in Grenchen. The boy above, for instance, is crating fruit grown on a farm with two minutes walk of the town's commercial com-mercial center. , |