By Ann McCreary
New irrigation service is expected to begin providing water this week to Methow Valley Irrigation District (MVID) members living on Wagner, Marble and Burton streets in Twisp, areas not previously served by the irrigation district.
The water is being delivered through new underground irrigation lines being installed as part of MVID’s $10 million Instream Flow Improvement Project that began last fall.
Lloyd Logging Company was hired to install about 9,000 linear feet of new underground irrigation system that, when completed, will connect about 73 MVID customers in Twisp town limits to a new gravity-fed pipe that replaces a large portion of MVID’s open East Canal.
A new line running behind the Sportsman Motel and by the Blackbirds property will also begin carrying water this week, said project manager Gregg Knott.
MVID members are responsible for hooking up the new MVID valve located on their property line, said Knott.
The remainder of the system serving MVID members in Twisp is expected to be installed and ready for use by early June, he said.
The new enclosed East Canal Pipe system, which carries water from the Lloyd Industrial Park in Twisp to Beaver Creek, began providing water to district members along the canal route in early May. Knott said some users reported blockages and clogged filters as they turned on their irrigation.
Although the main pipe was flushed before the system was turned on May 1, Knott said it appeared some that some of the lateral pipes still had debris from the construction. He said a trash screen at the pipe intake near the industrial park should filter out most debris larger than one-eighth inch.
“MVID and the project team have been working to learn how to operate this new screen and some trash may have been also introduced into the system during the first week of water,” Knott said.
“As the pipes clear from construction debris and the bugs in the trash screen are worked out, we expect East Canal users will see cleaner water in the future,” he said.
Some users at the end of the new enclosed gravity-fed line are reporting greater water pressure than they had with the open canal, and may not have to use pumps to run their sprinklers, Knott said.
Work on the West Canal portion of the project will begin during the first week of June. Bianchi Construction of Mount Vernon was awarded a contract to construct a pressurized pipe system about 1.8 miles long that will be fed by four new wells dug behind Hank’s Harvest Foods.
The new system will end the diversion of water from the Twisp River about three miles upstream from Lookout Mountain. MVID was ordered by regulatory agencies to end the diversion because it threatens habitat for endangered fish.
Bianchi will begin constructing the pipe parallel to the existing canal on property owned by Bill White near Lookout Mountain Road, Knott said.
“West Canal users in Twisp will continue to receive water using their existing systems for the entire irrigation season,” Knott said.
The new pressurized pump system will be activated for the first time next irrigation season, he said. Bianchi will work outside of the existing canal until it shuts down Oct. 1, and finish the in-canal work by November. No tree removal will take place until after the canal shuts down, Knott said.
The lower eight miles and upper three miles of the West Canal will be shut down, and well conversions are underway for MVID customers on the south end of the West Canal, and a few on the East Canal. New wells are being dug or existing wells improved to provide irrigation water to MVID members no longer served by the canal.
Some customers are waiting for the Public Utility District to provide power to run their new well pumps, Knott said.
