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California’s mammoth snow drifts, a welcome sight following five years of harsh drought, have killed off dozens of endangered bighorn sheep, lengthened hibernation for bears and should cause some hikers to think twice before seeking high Sierra adventures, officials say. Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, heads out Monday for the final manual measurement of the wet season, which is expected to set a record. “We’ve gone from flat-out dry conditions to just an overabundance of moisture,” said Doug Carlson, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources. “

“The emergency spillway worked.” That, the latest tone-deaf utterance from the leader of the state Department of Water Resources, is the type of comment we’ve come to dreadfully expect from the Department of Denial. To hear that remark at a legislative hearing in Sacramento only compounded the shock. The Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee was the first to get to ask questions about the Oroville spillway fiasco, nearly three months after the structure started falling apart and the hill got forever scarred.

 

The San Diego County Water Authority board of directors on Thursday authorized the Water Authority, in conjunction with the city of San Diego, to begin seeking detailed proposals for a potential energy storage facility at San Vicente Reservoir. The project could help ease pressure on power grids by producing locally generated renewable energy on demand, and also lessen upward pressure on water rates by providing a new source of revenue.

Gridley – “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the impact on your lives,” Bill Croyle told a crowd of more than 250 people at the Butte County Fairgrounds. Croyle, the acting director of the Department of Water Resources, answered questions and listened Thursday evening as people stepped up to a microphone and were heard during the first of the water agency’s community meetings about the Oroville Dam spillway disaster and evacuations. Six more meetings are planned through mid-May. The next one is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Oroville Municipal Auditorium on Myers Street in Oroville.

California water officials on Thursday approved funding for Paso Robles’ proposed $18 million tertiary sewage treatment plant, the final in a series of major infrastructure projects that will bring about 3,300 acre-feet of water to the city each year. Dick McKinley, Paso Robles’ director of public works, said Thursday that the city plans to award a contract bid next month and break ground on the plant in June or July.