A project team member working on the Canyon Tunnel project along the Stanislaus River below Goodwin Dam Tuesday was killed during a rock fall inside the tunnel.

Twyla Cappurro, a member of the Provost and Pritchard Consulting Group’s team, lost her life.

The tunnel is a joint project of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District. It is part of the main supply canal system for SSJID as well as delivers part of OID’s water.

Emergency responders from Modesto Fire and other regional areas were dispatched at 3:42 p.m. April 14 to the project site northeast of Knights Ferry in Calaveras County.

One individual was transported to an area hospital.

Rescue and recovery crews worked tirelessly but when they reached Cappurro at around 10 p.m. she was deceased.

The two districts are currently working on an $80 million bypass that would install 12,000 feet of new tunnel to eliminate the use of a series of tunnels and canals built more than 110 years ago on canyon walls that have proven to be unstable over the years.

Landslides over the years have blocked the movement of water in the canal that runs along the northern wall of the Stanislaus River canyon from Goodwin Dam where water is diverted to a point east of Knights Ferry where the canal departs from the canyon and water ultimately flows toward the in-district Woodward Reservoir.

The project is critical to assure reliability of water delivery to supplies to the cities of Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy as well as 52,000 acres of farmland in the South San Joaquin Irrigation District.