Last weekend’s storm provided another healthful dose of water to area lakes from Lake Hemet to Big Bear, but probably none received a greater benefit than Lake Elsinore. Southern California’s largest natural freshwater lake — which depends primarily on water overflowing Canyon Lake’s dam upstream — has risen more to 1,240 feet above sea level — eight feet higher than in early September when it was at its lowest point in more than 20 years.
As the latest major storm to saturate California got in its final licks Tuesday, the state deployed all the weapons in its flood-control arsenal — including farm tractors, pontoon boats and controlled releases from mountain reservoirs. By nightfall, as the storm weakened over Northern California, it appeared that the region — so far — had successfully navigated its way through another “atmospheric river,” as meteorologists now call the intense, Pacific-born storm systems once known as the Pineapple Express.
An “atmospheric river” continued to batter parts of Northern California on Tuesday, causing widespread flooding. The heavy rains prompted the National Weather Service to warn of a dam failure outside Carson City, Nev., saying that it was “not a drill” and that residents should “move to higher ground now.” But less than 90 minutes after issuing the alert, the agency changed its report to say the retention basin in Dayton, Nev., had not failed. Instead, it was full and overflowing into drainage areas, the weather service said.
Last week I was a guest on an “inspection” trip of the Colorado River Aqueduct, the engineering marvel that delivers up to 1 billion gallons (3.8 billion liters) of water daily to Southern California from the Colorado River hundreds of miles to the east. Organized by the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California, these inspections are a relic of an old piece of administrative code. Today they’ve become a well-choreographed public relations effort – right down to the framed MWD mission statement on the walls of the bedrooms provided to guests.
At VerdeXchange 2017, Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl announced her plans to introduce a motion to develop a countywide funding measure for stormwater capture and management. In a powerful regional stormwater collaboration VX2017 panel, which also included Felicia Marcus, Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board; Robert Garcia, Mayor of Long Beach; Jeff Kightlinger, GM of Metropolitan Water District; and Matt Petersen, Chief Sustainability Officer for City of Los Angeles, Sup. Kuehl announced her intension to fund pertinent regional water infrastructure through a parcel fee on property owners. TPR presents an excerpt of the panel.
With the reservoir and all water district canals brimming, there is a great effort to move water into underground aquifer recharge ponds, said David Nixon, general manager of the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District in Kern County. “Absolutely, we tried to get every acre foot of water in this district we possibly can,” he said. “With that water at this time of year, before it’s needed by agriculture, it’s all about water storage and rebuilding that underground aquifer. “We have about 1500 acres of recharge ponds that we can use to refill the underground aquifer,” Nixon said.
For the second day in a row, a torrent of water on Sunday flowed over the Anderson Reservoir spillway, marking a phenomenon that hadn’t happened for 11 years until this weekend. The Morgan Hill reservoir hovered around 101.4 percent of its maximum capacity as of Sunday afternoon, but that number could rise as an impending storm barrels toward the Bay Area.
Waterlogged Northern California will get more heavy rainfall into Wednesday, renewing fears about flooding in the region. The new onslaught of rain comes as Southern California dries out following downpours that left five people dead. A flood warning is in effect for Northern California’s interior counties through Thursday. Storms started overnight Saturday, with two to four inches of rain expected by Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said. Some areas may get up to 10 inches and the driving rain could drastically reduce visibility, Chinchar warned.
California Department of Water Resources officials reached their goal of getting water levels in Lake Oroville 50 feet below the dam crest Monday.The reservoir reached 50 feet below capacity as of 6 a.m. Monday. The 850-foot mark is important because it gives ground crews more flexibility for water flowing into the lake during this week’s storms, DWR officials said. “It allows us to lower our outflows from the dam, so we can start working on the diversion pool,” said Chris Orrock, a DWR spokesman.
By now we have all seen the spectacular images of volumes of water crashing down the Oroville Dam spillway in California and blasting upward into the air as they hit an enormous crater in the spillway floor, flooding down the adjacent hillside, threatening people in towns below. Those images reveal a big mistake: failure to update infrastructure to defend against climate change.
