The rains are increasing Lake Oroville levels dramatically. Water levels have gone up 27 feet in the last five days. According to the Department of Water Resources, the water level was at 802 feet on Thursday. To compare, the high point in 2015 was 764 feet.
Thursday’s water level puts the lake at 62 percent of capacity. With the rain expected to continue, they are projecting the lake to rise another 30 feet.
The ongoing deluge of storms in Northern California has swelled lakes and dams, boosting the prospects for outdoor recreation but likely falling short of ending the drought. Heavy rain hit the region north of San Francisco on Thursday with four inches expected by Friday, the National Weather Service said. In Santa Rosa, the storm caused a partial roof collapse at a Kmart store. No injuries were reported.
Flash-flood warnings were issued for swelling rivers and streams in Marin and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco.
Many coastal city officials are considering spending millions – in some cases billions – of taxpayer dollars preparing for an impending flood caused by rising sea levels. For example, in 2013, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a $20 billion, 20-year plan to protect the city from rising sea levels.
The concerns are being driven in part by recent studies predicting the coming floods, such as two new reports that claim that seas are rising faster than at any other point in the last 28 centuries.
A proposed California ballot initiative would reallocate more than $10 billion from the High Speed Rail project and the 2014 water bond to instead fund water storage projects. But opponents say it could do much more than that. Some Republican lawmakers who have long fought for water storage projects, environmentalists, and some farmers say the measure is an attempt to misguide voters.
“It is a classic case where people really have to understand, this is not about High Speed Rail,” says Jay Ziegler with the Nature Conservancy. “It’s about fundamentally reordering water law and water rights in California.”
The first wave of ‘Miracle March’ storms in California offset three dry weeks in February and improved storage in some reservoirs. Now, the state is primed for drought improvement, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released March 10.
Storms last week brought California “some badly-needed precipitation after rather dry and mild conditions the past 3 weeks [February] caused a sharp decline in the Water Year-To-Date (WYTD) precipitation and snowpack that were both above-normal in early February.”
The state Senate Select Committee on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will conduct a hearing on the economic impacts of the proposed Delta tunnels. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Friday in the lower-level auditorium of the Milton Marks Conference Center, 455 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco.
Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, is the chairwoman of the committee. The hearing participants will discuss the “connection between pending decisions, including permitting for the Delta tunnels, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the Bay Area’s tourism, fishing industries, and overall economy and environment,” a statement released by Wolk’s office states.
Even though Southern California hasn’t gotten the drought-busting rainy windfall some might have expected from El Nino, federal scientists hold out hope for the next several weeks.
Central and Northern California have gotten more heavy rain, especially in recent weeks. Southern California hasn’t quite been so soaked. But National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists say their turn may still yet come. Traditionally Southern California gets its downpours from El Ninos later, in the spring, said NOAA research scientist Martin Hoerling.
In a controversial move, a piece of San Joaquin Valley may end up belonging to Southern California as part of the Delta tunnels project.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to buy five islands that could potentially influence the state’s water supply. The district says it wants to buy Bouldin Island, Bacon Island, Webb Tract most of Holland Tract and the western tip of Chipps Island to preserve quality water.
If it’s not a water grab, it comes close. That’s one way to view a move by Southern California’s largest water district to buy a handful of Sacramento Delta islands that spell the future of state water policy.
Though it’s based hundreds of miles away, the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 19 million customers, is buying 20,000 acres of real estate in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California’s prime plumbing fixture.
There’s no other way to say it. The federal Bureau of Reclamation’s decision Wednesday to export less water south from the Delta than is legally allowed defies common sense.
Rain and snow finally have returned to California following three years of intense drought. This most recent storm was big enough to inflict damage on coastal areas and bury the northern Sierra under deep blankets of snow.
