Gallegos Pumping Plant Transfer

Written by: Pat Page

Gallegos Pumping PlantSeptember 2016 marked the transfer of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project’s (NIIP) Gallegos Pumping Plant and associated features from Reclamation’s Asset-Under-Construction to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Operations and Maintenance (O&M) status. Named for Gallegos Canyon, a major topographic feature near its location, the Gallegos Pumping Plant lifts irrigation water into the Burnham Lateral and provides irrigation water to Blocks 8 and 9 and the future Blocks 10 and 11.

Under this transfer, the Gallegos Pumping Plant became the largest pumping plant in the BIA’s Asset Inventory with a total pumping rate of 880 cubic feet per second and 337 feet of total dynamic head. It utilizes a total of 42,500 horsepower for 8 electric motor driven vertical shaft centrifugal pumps to supply irrigation water to, upon full development, approximately 40,000 acres of farm land.

Reclamation’s Technical Service Center provided the designs and Four Corners Construction Office (FCCO) performed the construction management on the plant while also providing training to the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI) in the O&M of the complex facility. NAPI is capable and poised to perform the O&M on the plant under a P.L. 93-638 contract with the BIA and the FCCO’s O&M crew will continue to provide technical assistance under a two year term O&M interagency agreement with the BIA.

The NIIP is an ongoing BIA irrigation project on the Navajo Indian Reservation in northwest New Mexico and is being designed and constructed by Reclamation through a 1962 Memorandum of Agreement with the BIA. The project was authorized in 1962 and presently has approximately 72,000 acres under irrigation with a diverse mix of crops including potatoes, corn, alfalfa, beans, small grains and a variety of specialty crops. When complete, the project will provide irrigation water to up to 110,630 acres of farm land.

Published on September 01, 2016