The snowpack in the Tahoe Basin is “grim” right now, but at this point one cold storm could quickly turnaround everything, according to one expert. The snowpack in the Tahoe Basin is 35 percent of median, said Jeff Anderson, water supply specialist with the Nevada Natural Resources Conservation Service. Rainfall totals are 113 percent, he added.
States, federal and Mexican officials hailed a binational agreement this fall that they said could lead to a radical shift in how the region prepares for and responds to drought. But three months later, they appear no closer to a drought contingency plan, as negotiations have pitted states and water districts against one another, as the U.S. tries to hammer out details of the plan.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) has sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, urging him to recover $84.8 million in taxpayer money that was identified in a recent inspector general report detailing how the funds were misspent, according to information released Friday by Huffman’s office. The funds were to benefit a select few California water districts participating in the “WaterFix” planning process, according to a report titled “The Bureau of Reclamation Was Not Transparent in Its Participation in the [San Francisco] Bay Delta Conservation Plan.”
Both sieges began in darkness with fierce winds that made the flames impossible to stop. Hurricane-force gusts pushed the flames over highways that should have been barriers and into neighborhoods so quickly that officials said they were helpless to protect the homes in their path. The wine country fires that ravaged Northern California in October and the firestorm in Southern California this month have capped the most destructive year for fires in state history.
