It’s the first phase of the Coachella Valley Water District’s Mid-Valley Pipeline Project, which is 50 percent complete and on schedule to start delivering irrigation water to some valley golf courses by mid July, district officials said.

The new delivery system will send Colorado River water via the Coachella Canal to mid-valley golf courses to reduce the amount of groundwater they use, thus saving drinking water, said Steve Robbins, the district’s general manager.

Crews using massive earth-moving equipment are burying 54 inch-diameter pipes 20 feet below the surface. There’s some jumping around when it comes to laying sections of pipe, Robbins said.

One end of the project may be closer to completion than another, depending on the work schedule. Workers are laying the last of the pipes along the storm water channel between Adams Street and Dune Palms Road.

About 30 mid-valley golf courses already use some recycled water for irrigation. They include Indian Ridge Country Club and Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert and Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells. The pipeline will eventually carry irrigation water from the canal to up to 50 golf courses in Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. Also, a new receiving reservoir at the recycling plant will have the capacity to hold 65 acre feet of blended canal and recycled water, which will in turn be used initially to serve 12 golf courses.

In the past, the district had been unable to supply golf courses with all the recycled water they needed for irrigation, especially in the summer when the temperatures head north, so do the snowbirds, which means fewer toilets are flushing across the valley. Fewer toilet flushes mean less water to treat at the recycling plant, said district spokeswoman Heather Engel.

When there’s not enough recycled water available, golf courses have to use groundwater the valley’s drinking water for irrigation. By blending canal water with water produced at the recycling plant, the district will have a much larger supply of irrigation water available.

Toscana Country Club uses about 60 percent recycled water to irrigate its 18-hole golf course and all the landscape, said Richard Sall, the club’s golf course superintendent. Once the project is online, the club will be able to access more recycled or blended water when they need it the most in the summer. “That will be even less well water I’ll have to use,” he said. The club could eventually use as much as 75 percent recycled water, a savings of about 150 acre feet of ground water each year.