Rainbow MWD board approves Heli-Hydrant at Pala Mesa

The Rainbow Municipal Water District will be adding a Heli-Hydrant fire protection system on its Pala Mesa site.

A 5-0 Rainbow board vote May 25 added the Heli-Hydrant project to Rainbow's capital improvement plan, appropriated $149,728 from the district's capital reserve fund, and authorized Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy to execute the contracts required to procure and install the equipment.

"We're really excited about this," Kennedy said.

Prior to 2012 firefighting helicopters extracted water from reservoirs which were not covered at the time. Rainbow installed floating covers on three...