Nissho Iwai American Corp. (NIAC) was awarded a contract by the State of California, Department of Water Resources (DWR) to furnish and install four vertical centrifugal pumps for the Edmonston Pumping Plant. The pumps will be designed and built by Hitachi Ltd of Japan. The contract, valued at approximately USD 30,000,000, is expected to run for eight years. The new Hitachi pumps will replace four units installed in the late 1960s when the Edmonston pumping plant was first built by DWR as part of the California State Water Project. Located in the San Joaquin Valley of California , the Edmonston pumping plant is used to lift water almost 2000 feet up and over the Tehachapi Mountains into Southern California. At peak capacity, the plant pumps almost 2 million gallons a minute through 10 miles of pipeline across the mountains. Each new Hitachi vertical centrifugal pump will have 315 cubic feet per second flow capacity at 1970 feet rated head. The first phase of the contract involves designing and fabricating a four-stage pump model and a single-stage pump model and furnishing a pump model test program report. After successful completion of the model phase, the four new pumps will be designed, fabricated, delivered, and installed.