WATER SYSTEM OPERATOR TRAINING FOR THE CENTRAL ARIZONAPROJECT

摘要

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is designed to bring about 1.5 million acre-feet ofColorado River water per year to Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties in Arizona. CAPcarries water from Lake Havasu down to Tucson. The CAP canal system is a 336-milelong system of aqueducts, tunnels, pumping plants, and pipelines and is the largest singleresource of renewable water supplies in the state of Arizona. The entire CAP system ismonitored and remotely controlled using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition(SCADA) software from CAP headquarters in Phoenix, AZ. Recently, several newSCADA operators have been hired by CAP. The new operators received SCADAtraining only by observing the more experienced operators manage the canal system andthus their training was driven by the day-to-day operation of the system. To better equiptheir new Water System Operators, personnel at CAP recently commissioned thedevelopment of a new SCADA training tool as envisioned by researchers at the U.S. AridLand Agricultural Research Center that replaces the real canal with a hydraulicsimulation model without making any changes to the SCADA software. Employees atWEST Consultants, Inc. Recently modified this training tool so that it works with HECRASas the hydraulic simulation model. Using this new training tool, the new CAPWater System Operators are now being trained to operate the CAP system under a muchwider range of flow conditions and emergency situations without endangering the actualcanal system or wasting water. The training tool will give the new operators a largerknowledge base with which to handle emergency situations.