The C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant (formerly known as the Tracy Pumping Plant) sits at the head of the 117-mile long Delta-Mendota Canal.

Completed in 1951, the canal begins near Tracy, Calif. and follows the Coast Range south, providing irrigation water to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley along its route and terminating at Mendota Pool.

A facility of the federal Central Valley Project, the Jones Pumping Plant receives water from the distant Sacramento River and acts as a conduit for it to reach the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

For this to happen, the Delta Cross Channel was built to augment the flow of Sacramento River water through the Delta. The 6,000-foot channel diverts water from the Sacramento River into a branch of the Mokelumne River, where it follows natural channels for about 50 miles to the Jones Pumping Plant intake channel.

Located near the State Water Project’s Harvey O. Banks Delta Pumping Plant, the Jones Pumping Plant uses six large pumps to lift water 197 feet up into the Delta-Mendota Canal, where the water is then transported to farms in the San Joaquin Valley.