As irrigation season moves into harvest, diversions are now reduced or shut off. You have a drying ditch now or you will by the end of October, and then most of November and part of December that should be dry enough for quick field work. This is the time to install in-ditch or in-pipe devices needed next year – for many diverters, starting January 1. Here is the Water Board‘s table, with equivalent water right columns added. How those equivalent water rights were calculated is explained in a previous post: How Do I Comply With Water Board Regulations? Part 2
Past posts in this blog have discussed several types of open-ditch measurement devices that are easy to install, inexpensive compared to formed-and-poured concrete structures, and readily available. These includes weirs, flumes, and orifices.
As covered before, installing Briggs prefabricated concrete weirs needs a
backhoe or excavator, but site preparation in a ditch is simple and takes only 2-3 hours if access to the site exists. These are shipped from Willows, and when several of your neighbors are ready, or if you have several diversions, then trucking can be arranged to keep delivery cost down.
EZ-Ramp Flumes from Intermountain Environmental in Colorado come disassembled, with all connectors, and weigh 
62 lbs up to 400 lbs for flumes ranging in size from 3.5 to 20 (!) cfs. They are inexpensive and while the larger sizes will probably require a backhoe for site preparation and backfill, the smaller sizes can be installed by hand in a narrow part of the ditch.
The previous post covered water level loggers, which you need to automatically record data at your measurement device. Whether you go with Frank Crowe’s neat $700 option for the Vegetronix and AquaPlumb, or the ready-to-go, set it and forget it PMC Versaline at $1,700 installed, you will be compliant with the Water Board‘s regulations.
That’s it for tonight! Have a great rest of the week and weekend.
