Divers keep ag water flowing

California Foodways

Hundreds of miles from the ocean, divers don wetsuits, helmets, communication lines, and four air supply systems, and submerge into the Sacramento River. They're here to do annual maintenance at an irrigation pump. Picture contractors and construction workers, just under water. Anywhere there are lakes and rivers, anywhere we've manipulated water, like dams and canals, commercial divers work on the infrastructure -- cleaning, maintaining, building, repairing. In this story we meet the team behind Big Valley Divers, and learn how guys who grew up in the Sacramento Valley end up spending their days under water, keeping water flowing into farmland.