In FERN’s latest story, produced with KQED’s The California Report, reporter Lisa Morehouse takes us inside the obscure, but crucial, work done by commercial divers to keep irrigation canals clear and functioning properly.
“Here’s the scene: I’m at the edge of California’s Sacramento River, across from the town of Princeton,” Morehouse writes. “There’s a trailer full of equipment, and a cacophony of generators and pumps. This is clearly a worksite, but the real work is happening out of view. The only clues are some bubbles on the water’s surface, and something that sounds like walkie talkies. The team of four from Big Valley Divers is doing seasonal work at a pump station that’s about to supply irrigation canals across the Sacramento Valley with water.
“Big Valley Divers, for example, work on drinking tanks for potable water. They work in marinas, installing structures and repairing moorings. They work on salvage, recovering boats and cars and semis, whatever ends up in a waterway. They work in hydroelectricity, on dams. Most of their work, though, is in irrigation.”