The Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant is located southwest of the

Clifton Court Forebay Clifton Court Forebay is a reservoir in the San Joaquin River Delta region of eastern Contra Costa County, California, southwest of Stockton, California, Stockton. The estuary region the forebay is located in is only 1m to 3m above mean sea lev ...

and northwest of Tracy, CA. The plant is the first pumping plant for the

California Aqueduct The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after Cali ...

and the

South Bay Aqueduct The South Bay Aqueduct is an aqueduct (water supply), aqueduct located in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It conveys water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta through over forty miles of pipelines and canals. It begins in north-e ...

. It provides the necessary fluid head (potential energy) for the

to flow for approximately south past the

O'Neill Forebay O'Neill Forebay is a forebay to the San Luis Reservoir created by the construction of O'Neill Dam across San Luis Creek approximately west of Los Banos, California, United States, on the eastern slopes of the Pacific Coast Ranges of Merced Co ...

and the

San Luis Reservoir The San Luis Reservoir is an artificial lake on San Luis Creek in the eastern slopes of the Diablo Range of Merced County, California, approximately west of Los Banos on State Route 152, which crosses Pacheco Pass and runs along its north ...

to the

Dos Amigos Pumping Plant The Dos Amigos Pumping Plant is a water pumping plant, constructed between 1963 and 1966 as part of the California State Water Project. It is able to withhold and transport water between Northern and Southern California through an approximately ...

. The Banks Pumping Plant initially flows into the

Bethany Reservoir The Bethany Reservoir is located northeast of Livermore, California, USA, on the California Aqueduct. It serves as the forebay for the South Bay Pumping Plant that feeds the South Bay Aqueduct. Characteristics * Gross capacity: See also * Li ...

. It is from the

that the

begins. The John E. Skinner Delta Fish Protective Facility is located 2 miles upstream from the facility and prevents fishes from reaching the pumping plant. Limits on water pumping from the Sacramento Delta is a politically contentious issue. In dry years, water pumped from the Delta creates a hazard to spring-run

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

. As the Banks Pumping Plant pulls water from the Sacramento River southward across the Delta, it disrupts the normal flow direction of east to west that salmon smolt follow to the Pacific Ocean. Populations of salmon and

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

have reached critically low levels in the decades after SWP water withdrawals began. The fish migration issue has become hotly contested in recent years, with rising support for the construction of the

Peripheral Canal The Peripheral Canal was a series of proposals starting in the 1940s to divert water from California's Sacramento River, around the periphery of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, to uses farther south. The canal would have attempted to resolv ...

, which would divert water around the Delta, restoring the natural flow direction.

Characteristics

* Number of units: 11 * Normal static head: * Total flow at design head: 10,920 ft³/s (302 m³/s) (21,659 acre-feet/day) * Total motor rating: 333,000 hp (248 MW)

References

External links

Banks plant sensor data
California State Water Project Buildings and structures in Alameda County, California Buildings and structures in Contra Costa County, California Water supply infrastructure in California Water supply pumping stations in the United States Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta {{Watersupply-stub