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More Rain For The Central Valley

/in /by /Visalia Times - Deltaby Calley Cederlof

Another storm system will pass through the Central Valley on Tuesday, bringing light, scattered showers. Rain will start developing around midnight on Tuesday and will continue into the afternoon. The bulk of the system will pass through between 7 a.m. and noon, said Scott Borgioli, WeatherAg chief meteorologist. Scattered showers will bring less than a quarter-inch of rain. Tuesday’s high temperatures upper 60s, but a warming trend could push the mercury above 85 this weekend.

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Look, You Can’t Do a Ribbon-Cutting on New Plumbing

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

For years, San Diego Unified has known plumbing was aging at 78-year-old Emerson-Bandini Elementary School in Mountain View. In fact, three times in the past 13 years, Emerson’s plumbing needs were held up to voters as one of the reasons they should approve tax hikes to fund school repairs. Voters approved all three measures, pumping billions of dollars into the district. But the plumbing repairs have yet to happen. In the meantime, school officials found alarming levels of toxic chemicals in the water at Emerson.

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Serious Design, Construction and Maintenance Defects Doomed Oroville Dam, Report Says

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ralph Vartabedian

Design flaws, construction shortcomings and maintenance errors caused the Oroville Dam spillway to break apart in February, according to an independent analysis by Robert Bea for the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley. Bea, a co-founder of the center and retired civil engineering professor, found that in the 1960s, when the dam was being planned, designers did not call for a thick enough concrete spillway floor. Nor did they require the continuous steel reinforcement needed to keep its slabs intact during decades of service.

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Lake Powell to Release Above-Average Amount of Water to Lake Mead

/in /by /Las Vegas Sunby Dan Elliott

The federal government said Monday it plans to release an above-average amount of water from a major reservoir in the Southwestern U.S. this year, but it’s less than many hoped after a healthy snow season across much of the West. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages dams and reservoirs on the Colorado River, said it will release 9 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, sending it down the Colorado into Lake Mead, where it will be tapped by Arizona, California and Nevada. An acre-foot can supply two typical homes for a year.

 

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Water Transfers: Crucial to Western Rivers, But State Programs Lacking

/in /by /News Deeplyby Matt Weiser

Water transfers are an important way to share a limited resource, especially to help fish and habitats that were historically left with scraps when water rights were parceled out around the West. The water for such transfers usually comes from farmers, who free up water through some kind of conservation measure. By transferring the saved water, a farmer can help imperiled fish and make some money. Such arrangements are especially important on the Colorado River, which is oversubscribed to serve human demands and also feeds a vast international ecosystem.

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