Canal Safety
at Roosevelt Water Conservation District By Shane M. Leonard
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The Nature of the Water Delivery System The canal is doing what it is supposed to do, and it is not until the human element is introduced that it can
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become dangerous. Transportation engineers design streets and sidewalks for the movement of people and take safety precautions into consideration as a normal course of design. Canals and irrigation infrastructure are designed to move water, so the safety of the public is not a typical consideration. RWCD’s system operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, so we always have personnel in the field. However, the primary purpose of our personnel, as with the delivery system, is the safe and timely delivery of water. Public safety concerns are important to us, but it is difficult to address such matters given the large number of acres and miles of system we operate compared to the number of staff we have in the field at any given time. And when an emergency does occur, our employees are often not in the area. Coordination With Law Enforcement RWCD delivers water to farms, ranches, subdivisions, schools, and businesses across 40,000 acres. Given the size of the district and the overlapping service jurisdictions we have with local municipalities, the appropriate law enforcement authority could be one of four policing IRRIGATION LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROOSEVELT WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT.
oosevelt Water Conservation District (RWCD) serves a growing customer base in and around the cities of Mesa and Chandler and the town of Gilbert in central Arizona. Urbanization and a more active population have the potential to create public safety issues in and around RWCD’s canals. In central Arizona, the public perception is that canals are the closest things we have to rivers and the activities rivers would provide for under normal circumstances. People want to walk their dog along the edge, sit on the bank to reflect on the workday, or fish in the canal, but these are the very activities that pose a tremendous safety risk. A canal system is not conducive to both public entertainment and public safety as a matter of routine design. As an organization, RWCD knows that it would be next to impossible to construct a barrier around our entire system to keep trespassers out. As such, RWCD’s public safety plan is multifaceted and constantly evolving.
Main canal at Roosevelt Water Conservation District.
