Rosa Irrigation Busy During Off Season With Upgrades, Improvements

It’s been a busy off season for the Rosa irrigation district.  Crews have installed roughly ten miles of pipe, converting open canel to a closed pipe systems near Prosser.  Scott Revell, Rosa Irrigation Executive Director said this is an on-going effort dating back to 1983.  And since they are able to convert about 10-12 miles per year, they should continue this project for another decade.

He noted during the winter they also made much needed upgrades.

“We’ve done a whole series of filtration systems called gravel packs, to filter out some of the aquatic weeds that float down the canal.  We’ve got those installed and we installed a series of air blow offs into some of the older ones, so that will save a tremendous amount of our crew’s time.”

A move he said would save hundreds of man hours every summer.

Ravell added another ongoing project this winter, replacement of the first series of irrigation meters, many of which were installed in the early 1980s.  Ravell said if those meters get clogged or they fail they can cause a leak, which can shutdown a line for days.  He said this replacement efforts has been on the to-do list for years, so getting several replaced is great for the district.

“It doesn’t sound like much, but each one of those when it’s replaced it prevents about a two day outage if we have to replace it during the irrigation season, so that very good headway this year.”

Looking for the future, Ravell said Rosa will install more sealant on the concrete lines between Sunnyside and Moxee.

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