DWR Staffs Up

The year was 1959 when John Silveira, former DWR Deputy Director, joined the ranks of the recently established Department of Water Resources. Work would soon begin in earnest on what “was to be the biggest, the longest, and highest and maybe several other ‘ests’ that had ever been attempted before as a single project anywhere in the United States or, for that matter, in the world,” he remembers.

He witnessed DWR’s growth from 760, 250 of which were assigned to Design and Construction, in 1956 to 1,900, of which 600 were D&C staff, during the period leading up the 1960 passage of the Burns-Porter Act. Construction on the South Bay and California aqueducts was already in progress.

John Silveira
Many of the new staff were raw recruits from colleges across the country. They came “in abundance” and awaited assignments that “would allow them to put their mark on this vast undertaking,” although sometimes their inexperience would display itself. He recalls that one young engineer, when asked to design an enclosure for an irrigation pump relocation, included in his design instructions to use corrugated metal siding for the enclosure with specific reference to a page in the 1962 Sears Roebuck Farm Catalogue.

These young recruits however were guided by more experienced professionals hired to oversee various aspects of the project. Consulting review boards were also established for each major area of activity including earth dams, tunnels, power and pumping plants, plus earthquake analysis.

The overriding driving force behind the construction of the SWP was its operational reliability. “It was recognized that each purveyor of water would have responsibilities to customers with investments at risk that made operational reliability of the project’s water delivery system an imperative,” Silveira says. “That requirement become an integral part of the design equation.”

Basic criteria were established such as protection of water quality, allowance for specific emergencies, partial or complete power failure and its effect on the aqueduct, and operational limitation on the plants in keeping with related transmission systems. Information was gained from studying systems of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

When construction of the system was at its peak DWR staff numbered about 4,480 with 2,250 in D&C. In 1965, as many as 50 major construction contracts were underway simultaneously, says Silveira. “It was an exciting time for the Department and myself.”

When major design work for SWP facilities north of the Tehachapi Crossing was
completed, Silveira left for New York to join a private engineering firm that
did work primarily overseas. During that time, he traveled extensively to
countries in Central America, South America, the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa,
working on various water, power and agriculture development projects. For
four years, he lived in Iran heading a number of projects including the
construction of a hydroelectric dam and transmission project and a major
irrigation system.

In 1989, Silveira came full circle and returned to DWR. Two years later, he was Deputy Director in charge of the operations and maintenance, design and construction, energy generation, and right-of-way for the State Water Project.