MWD – Hayfield Groundwater Recovery Facility

To augment water supplies during dry years, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California decided to build a groundwater recovery facility in the Mojave Desert adjacent to the Colorado River Aqueduct and the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant. A submersible pump in a 1000 foot deep well is designed to recover water from the Hayfield Groundwater basin at a rate of 3000 gpm. ProjectLine designed the electrical and instrumentation systems for the facility including 2 miles of 6.9kV overhead transmission line running parallel to a 230kV Blythe Energy transmission line. The distribution line was fed from new 6.9kV switchgear at the Hinds pumping plant and interfaced to the existing 6.9 kV substation switchgear supplying the twelve 9000 HP Hinds pumps. A 6.9/4.16 kV transformer and soft start at the well fed the 800 hp submersible pump. An above ground monitoring system provided data on water levels and pump conditions, including alarms.