Turlock Irrigation District has created a virtual tour of its facilities for anybody interested in learning more about the state’s oldest irrigation district.
“We get a lot of tour requests from companies or the public or legislators,” said Brandon McMillan, communications specialist for TID. “And, sometimes, we have two hours available on a Tuesday to conduct those tours. Well, Don Pedro (Reservoir) is an hour away, and we just can squeeze a tour into the time we have.”
Also, for security reasons, there are some facilities are off-limits to the public and can’t be toured. With the virtual tour, folks can now go behind the scenes to see the inner workings of Don Pedro, the Walnut Energy Center, the district’s Power Control Center, and how TID buys and sells power on the open market.
The video also gives an overview of TID’s operations, including how rain and snow eventually moves through TID’s canal system en route to agricultural lands.
And have you ever wonder how much water is actually in an acre foot of water? TID hydrologist Olivia Cramer will clear that up for you.
The 64-minute video starts out with a message from TID general manager Michelle Reimers, and follows with appearances from Cramer, chief operating officer Brad Koehn, director of power generation Tim Payne, hydroelectric department manager Chris Martin, Don Pedro recreation manager Ryan Reis, supervising engineer technicians Keith Larson and Wes Miller, director of water resources and regulatory affairs Michael Cooke, assistant GM of water resources Tou Her, water operations manager Seth Aldrich, construction and maintenance department manager Chris Hardin, assistant GM of power supply Dan Severson, senior civil engineer Bill Penney, combustion turbine department manager Mike Tejada, assistant GM of electrical engineering and operations Joe Gill, energy markets department manager Colin Selby, power control center department manager Adam Labuga, and assistant GM of financial services Brian Stubbert.
“This not only gives people a look at facilities that aren’t open to the public,” said McMillan, “But it also condenses what is normally at full-day tour into one hour.
“We just launched the video last month and have already had about 1,000 views. We made a few tweaks to the video and put the new video up three days ago, and that one already has about 100 views.”
To take the virtual tour of TID’s facilities, is it www.youtue.com/watch?v=h5So2b7vji0
