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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.

The California Department of Water Resources has temporarily shut down a power plant at Oroville Dam to make improvements that will increase its capacity for releasing water, officials announced Saturday. The Hyatt Power Plant initially stopped functioning when a massive mound of concrete, earth and debris formed in the channel below the dam’s 3,000-foot concrete spillway, which fractured Feb. 7. State officials were able to get it working again Friday, but it was not pumping water fast enough.

 

When state water officials scaled back their mass dumping of water from the damaged Oroville Dam this week, they knew the riverbed below would dry up enough to allow the removal of vast piles of debris from the fractured main spillway. But they apparently did not anticipate a side effect of their decision to stop feeding the gushing Feather River — a rapid drop in river level that, according to downstream landowners, caused miles of embankment to come crashing down.

As California labored under a severe drought for more than five years, industry and media debated the pros and cons of desalination coming to the rescue of the drought-stricken state. About a dozen or so desalination plants have been planned or proposed up and down the Golden State’s coast, with the 50 million gallon (189m liter) per day Carlsbad desalination plant opened in December 2015 and Santa Barbara’s smaller desalination facility set to open this spring.