Let’s say you owned a four-bedroom house, but one room was useless because of clutter. You’d probably eventually take a deep breath and clear out the crap. You’d reclaim the room. That’s pretty much the situation with many reservoirs in California. They’ve got too much gunk in them. And it’s crowding out space for water storage. But you don’t hear any deep breaths being taken in Sacramento. There’s no serious thought of removing the junk — silt, sand, gravel — and making more room for storm runoff.

Citing recent events at Oroville Dam, two congressmen have introduced a bill to speed up approval of a new reservoir in Northern California. The bill, HR1269, would accelerate federal review of the proposed Sites Reservoir and give officials a better chance at funding for the project under Proposition 1 bond funding, according to a news release from U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale.

Just as recent storms revealed weaknesses in Northern California’s dams and levees, they also exposed problems with Sacramento-area wastewater systems that failed to contain sewage. Record precipitation in the last two months created more pressure than some sewer lines and plants could handle. From Jan. 1 to March 2, more than 1 million gallons of wastewater spilled in the capital region, most into waterways, according to reports made by sewage districts to the State Water Resources Control Board. While spills occurred in several communities, most were in areas served by the Sacramento Area Sewer District and the city of Placerville.