SACRAMENTO – A special exhibit honoring California’s State Water Project (SWP) has begun a year-long run at The California Museum.

Entitled “Extreme Engineering: The California State Water Project Past, Present and Future,” it will be on view through July 17, 2011.

“This year marks the 50th anniversary since voters in November 1960 approved the $1.75 billion bond measure authorizing construction of the SWP,” said Mark Cowin, Director of the Department of Water Resources (DWR), which built and operates the SWP. “The California Museum’s dramatic SWP exhibit is a suitable recognition of the historic value of the SWP in the daily life of our state.”

The largest state-built and state-operated water and power system in the nation, the SWP provides drinking water for an estimated 25 million people and irrigation water for more than 750,000 farmland acres.

Designed and fabricated by DWR, the water exhibit graphically showcases the SWP’s huge delivery system.

The SWP uses reservoirs, power plants, pumping plants and more than 700 miles of aqueducts to store and transport water to public water agencies in Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast and Southern California. About 70 percent of SWP water goes to municipal users, with 30 percent reaching farm users.

A big-screen flyover will give visitors a bird’s-eye vision of the system. Traveling from the headwaters of the Feather River to the nation’s tallest dam, at Oroville, and then over hundreds of miles of aqueduct on its way to Southern California.

Further, the exhibit will help educate and encourage Californians to make wise water use and conservation choices in a region where precipitation and water supply are often uncertain.

“Throughout history, water – one of California’s most precious resources – has played a significant role,” said Claudia French, Executive Director of The California Museum. “We are honored that DWR chose to partner with us on this important exhibit.”

In 2001, the American Society of Civil Engineers selected the SWP as one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th Century.

Located at 10th and O streets a block south of the Capitol, the California Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

Admission: Adults $8.50, Students/Seniors (with valid ID) $7, Children 6-13, $6, and Children 5 and younger: free.

Online access can be found at www.CaliforniaMuseum.org.