Jurupa Community Services District Honored for Innovative Heli-Hydrant by ACWA Staff Dec 5, 2024 News Releases PALM DESERT – The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) today presented its third annual Excellence in Innovation Award to Jurupa Community Services District (JCSD) for its Heli-Hydrant Project. JCSD’s Heli-Hydrant is the first of its kind in the Inland Empire and strategically located in a fire-prone area. It consists of a 15-foot-wide, nearly 10,000-gallon capacity tank that allows firefighting helicopters to quickly fill onboard tanks with water to fight nearby wildfires. “Projects like these are so important in addressing climate change impacts, including record-breaking wildfires,” said ACWA President Cathy Green. “The successful and innovative approach to creating a means to significantly reduce response time when fighting a fire is crucial when it comes to successful containment.” Prior to the construction of the Heli-Hydrant, CalFire had to fly about 20 miles south of the area to Lake Mathews to refill their helicopters, increasing fire response time upwards of an hour during emergencies. JCSD’s Heli-Hydrant is located northwest of the city of Riverside and creates a centralized filing area for Jurupa Valley and Eastvale and the neighboring cities of San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario and Fontana. ACWA’s Excellence in Innovation Award recognizes outstanding innovations by public water agencies. The award, sponsored by CDM Smith, was presented during ACWA’s 2024 Fall Conference & Expo in Palm Desert, where more than 1,600 leaders from local water agencies in California gathered for programs and panel discussions on a variety of key water issues. The other finalists for this year’s award were: Rancho California Water District for its Well Monitoring System San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency for its Gap Funding Program Western Water for its North Well Manganese Treatment For more information about ACWA’s awards programs, please visit www.acwa.com/about/awards.
