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Rain and Snow Return to California, Just in Time to Complicate Your Thanksgiving Travels

/in , , /by /The Mendocino Voice by Kate B. Maxwell

A major winter storm, the first of the season, is forecasted to drench California this week, just in time to make Thanksgiving travels all the more difficult, especially if you have to cross the mountain pass on the way to Thanksgiving dinner. The storm is expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon or evening, and will bring significant rain to lower elevations (potentially putting an end of fire seasons) while dumping up to a couple feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada, and even a few inches of snow in the hills around Willits, Covelo, and Laytonville.

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El Nino Swings More Violently in the Industrial Age, Compelling Hard Evidence Says

/in , /by /Phys.orgby Georgia Institute of Technology

El Ninos have become more intense in the industrial age, which stands to worsen storms, drought, and coral bleaching in El Nino years. A new study has found compelling evidence in the Pacific Ocean that the stronger El Ninos are part of a climate pattern that is new and strange.

 

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100-Year-Old Shasta County Dam Creating Conditions of ‘Extreme Peril’

/in , /by /Record Searchlightby Damon Arthur

With winter rains on their way, officials worry a dam that creates a small lake 17 miles west of Redding could collapse, inundating downstream homes with up to 20 feet of water if sediment and debris clogging two outlet pipes is not cleared.

Two 30-inch outlet pipes at Misselbeck Dam have been clogged with silt and debris since last summer, forcing water from Rainbow Lake to flow over the top of a deteriorated 100-year-old spillway, said Charles Tucker, president of the Igo-Ono Community Services District, which owns the dam.

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Opinion: California Rejects Federal Water Proposal, Lays Out its Vision for Protecting Endangered Species and Meeting State Water Needs

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Wade Crowfoot and Jared Blumenfeld

California’s water policy can be complex, and—let’s be honest—often polarizing.

Water decisions frequently get distilled into unhelpful narratives of fish versus farms, north versus south, or urban versus rural. Climate change-driven droughts and flooding threats, as well as our divided political climate, compound these challenges.

We must rise above these historic conflicts by finding ways to protect our environment and build water security for communities and agriculture. We need to embrace decisions that benefit our entire state. Simply put, we have to become much more innovative, collaborative and adaptive.

 

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California Gov. Newsom Makes Move to Halt Trump Water Grab

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

California’s water wars escalated Thursday, as state leaders vowed to fight the Trump administration over plans to ship more water to Central Valley farms.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and members of his administration announced that they were preparing a lawsuit against the federal government to prevent California’s rivers and wildlife from being cheated out of vital supplies.

State leaders said boosting agricultural deliveries, a longtime campaign promise of the president, could upend fragile watersheds and threaten such protected fish as the iconic chinook salmon and delta smelt

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Can a New Approach to Managing California Reservoirs Save Water and Still Protect Against Floods?

/in , , /by /Water Education Foundation (Sacramento)by Gary Pitzer

Many of California’s watersheds are notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines require reservoirs to dump water each winter to make space for flood flows that may not come. However, new tools and operating methods could lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water supply and flood protection capabilities.

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Oroville Dam: Rebuilt Spillway Recognized for International Engineering Award

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)

OROVILLE, Calif. — The American Society of Civil Engineers has recognized the Oroville Dam rebuild as one of 10 outstanding civil engineering projects.

Two runners-up and a winner will be chosen at the 2020 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement gala in Washington D.C. on March 13.

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Record Rain In Vegas, Half-Foot Of Snow In Tahoe Mountains

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by Scott Sonner

Emergency Crews rescued two people from a wash flowing with runoff from record rain in Las Vegas, and up a to half-foot of Sierra snow (15 centimeters) triggered chain controls around Lake Tahoe as a cold front moved across Nevada on Wednesday.

The National Weather Service also issued a winter weather advisory through 4 p.m. Thursday for much of central Nevada, where as much as 6 inches (15 cm) is possible in mountain areas.

The service said 0.35 inch of rain (9 millimeters) fell in Las Vegas through 8 a.m. Wednesday, breaking the old record for the date set in 1963.

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Opinion: Newsom Must Stop the Westlands Water Grab and Save the San Francisco Bay-Delta

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Barbara Barrigan-Parilla

The San Francisco Bay-Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast, was once the home to fisheries that produced five million pounds of canned salmon a year.

The Delta’s largest city, Stockton, is where children swam, rowed boats, and canoed after school in places made navigable through their parents and grandparents’ labor. Today, our children in Stockton will not enter a river or slough to swim, or fish, or row. Our urban waterways are stagnant, thick with algal scum and toxins.

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Restoring the River with the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk

/in , /by /KCET

For the past two centuries, California has relied heavily on the natural resources of the North Coast region, exploiting its pristine watersheds for agriculture and its forests for timber. But today, the environmental costs of timber extraction and damming have reached a tipping point.

Now the Yurok are working with local and state organizations to revitalize the forests, rivers and wildlife, a comprehensive feat requiring collaboration among community leaders up and down the Klamath and Trinity Rivers.

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