After learning a lesson from what could have been the largest dam disaster U.S. history, California officials are reported to be considering withdrawing from the National Flood Insurance Program. Capital Public Radio is reporting that a proposal to exit the NFIP is based on the research of Nicholas Pinter with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “Examining data since 1994, Pinter said that California paid more than $3 billion more into the federal program than it has received in payments during the last 21 years,” a Capital Public Radio article states.

Reportedly, an effort to save millions of salmonoid fish below the Oroville dam may have caused a delay in releasing water from Oroville Dam on February 12. It set up the evacuation of at least 188,000 people in the area after authorities warned of an emergency spillway in the structure was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled floods of water on towns below. It was a near disaster and would have taken agricultural irrigation water with it, which has a lot of people asking questions. One person is Edward Needham. He provides agricultural services for growers throughout the state.

While a nearly record-breaking rainy season has battered California’s dams and stretched the limits of local levees, the storms that began to hit Sacramento on Tuesday aren’t expected to put much additional strain on the state’s flood-control system. Spanning into next week, the storms are expected to drop as much as two inches of rain in Sacramento and two feet of snow in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada. But federal weather forecasters said Tuesday they aren’t too worried about widespread problems.