Mountain House, Alameda County, California

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, with some anticipating that it would be a "Woodstock West". The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier. The event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two from a hit-and-run car accident, and one from an LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen (and subsequently abandoned), and there was extensive property damage.The concert featured performances (in order of appearance) by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY), with the Rolling Stones taking the stage as the final act. The Grateful Dead were also scheduled to perform after CSNY, but shortly before their scheduled appearance, they chose not to due to the increasing violence at the venue. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, the prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play," wrote staff at Rolling Stone magazine in a detailed narrative on the event, terming it, in an additional follow-up piece, "rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong."Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles shot footage of the event and incorporated it into the 1970 documentary film titled Gimme Shelter.

Altamont Raceway Park is a motorsports race track in the western United States, located in northern California, west of Tracy. It opened on July 22, 1966, and operated under the names Altamont Speedway, Altamont Raceway, Altamont Motorsports Park, Altamont Raceway Park and Arena, and Bernal Memorial Raceway. After 42 years of operation, the speedway closed in October 2008; the site is just south of the junction of Interstates 205 and 580.

The Bethany Reservoir is located 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Livermore, California, USA, on the California Aqueduct. It serves as the forebay for the South Bay Pumping Plant that feeds the South Bay Aqueduct.

Mountain House is a planned community in San Joaquin County, California. Mountain House is 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of Tracy, 15 miles east of Livermore, 0.5 miles from Interstate 580, and about 50 miles (80 km) east of San Francisco. The population was 24,499 at the 2020 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Mountain House as a census-designated place (CDP).

Bethany Reservoir State Recreation Area is a state park unit of California, United States, adjoining the Bethany Reservoir. It is located in Alameda County, near Livermore. Situated in the northernmost part of the San Joaquin Valley, Bethany Reservoir State Recreation Area is a popular place for water-oriented recreation, especially fishing and windsurfing. The reservoir stores water for a pumping plant on the California Aqueduct.

Midway is an unincorporated community in Alameda County, California, 6 miles (9.7 km) south-southeast of Altamont. It lies at an elevation of 358 feet (109 m). A post office operated in Midway from 1870 to 1918.

The C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant (formerly the Tracy Pumping Plant) located 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Tracy, California, was constructed between 1947 and 1951, and is a key component of the Central Valley Project. The Delta Cross Channel intercepts Sacramento River water as it travels westwards towards Suisun Bay and diverts it south through a series of man-made channels, the Mokelumne River, and other natural sloughs, marshes and distributaries. From there, the water travels to the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant, which raises water into the Delta-Mendota Canal, which in turn travels 117 miles (188 km) southwards to Mendota Pool on the San Joaquin River, supplying water to other CVP reservoirs about midway. The Tracy Fish Collection Facility exists at the entrance of the pump plant in order to catch fish that would otherwise end up in the Delta-Mendota Canal.The Jones Pumping Plant provides water service to 32 water districts within the western San Joaquin Valley, San Benito and Santa Clara counties. Of the approximate 3,000,000 acre-feet (3.7×109 m3) of water distributed, 2,500,000 acre-feet (3.1×109 m3) is delivered to farms, 200,000 acre-feet (250,000,000 m3) to urban areas, including Tracy and cities with in the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and 300,000 acre-feet (370,000,000 m3) for wildlife refuges.

The South Bay Pumping Plant is located 4 miles (6 km) southwest of the Clifton Court Forebay and 10.3 miles (17 km) northeast of Livermore, CA. The plant is the only main line pumping plant for the 42.9 mile (69 km) long South Bay Aqueduct. The plant pumps from the Bethany Reservoir which is part of the California Aqueduct.

The Byron-Bethany Irrigation District (BBID) is a special district serving the water needs of regions of Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Joaquin Counties in California. This area is about 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) and serves 160 agricultural customers, as well as residents of the all-inclusive Mountain House village community are served as well. Notable recipients of BBID's services in the area are The Patterson Pass Business Park, Prologis International Park of Commerce, and Cordes Ranch. The water comes from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and the Delta–Mendota Canal.

Hammer Island is a small island in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, in Contra Costa County, California, originally named Santos Island, it was changed to Hammer Island after Hans Hammer purchased the island from Mr. Santos in 1939. Its coordinates are 37°48′59″N 121°33′25″W,; the United States Geological Survey measured its elevation as 0 ft (0 m) in 1981, and it appears on a 1978 USGS map.

The Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant is located 2.5 miles (4.0 km) southwest of the Clifton Court Forebay and 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Tracy, CA. The plant is the first pumping plant for the California Aqueduct and the South Bay Aqueduct. It provides the necessary fluid head (potential energy) for the California Aqueduct to flow for approximately 80 miles (130 km) south past the O'Neill Forebay and the San Luis Reservoir to the Dos Amigos Pumping Plant. The Banks Pumping Plant initially flows into the Bethany Reservoir. It is from the Bethany Reservoir that the South Bay Aqueduct begins. The John E. Skinner Delta Fish Protective Facility is located 2 miles upstream from the facility and prevents fishes from reaching the pumping plant.Limits on water pumping from the Sacramento Delta is a politically contentious issue. In dry years, water pumped from the Delta creates a hazard to spring-run salmon. As the Banks Pumping Plant pulls water from the Sacramento River southward across the Delta, it disrupts the normal flow direction of east to west that salmon smolt follow to the Pacific Ocean. Populations of salmon and steelhead trout have reached critically low levels in the decades after SWP water withdrawals began. The fish migration issue has become hotly contested in recent years, with rising support for the construction of the Peripheral Canal, which would divert water around the Delta, restoring the natural flow direction.

The John E. Skinner Delta Fish Protective Facility or the Skinner Fish Facility is a fish collection and diversion facility located 2 miles upstream from the Banks Pumping Plant. In operation since 1968 by the California Department of Water Resources, the facility utilizes behavioral devices (fish screens) that divert most fish away from the pumping plant. Fish that make it past the behavior devices are collected into concrete tanks where they are later released back into the Sacramento River or the San Joaquin River.