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Can California Repair Damaged Delta Reservoir Within 45 Days?

State officials said Wednesday that Californians reliant on water pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta won’t face supply shortages, even as crews shut down a massive pumping station that serves much of Southern California for at least a month to make repairs to its intake reservoir. The repair effort involves Clifton Court Forebay, a shallow reservoir that serves as an entryway for a Delta pumping station critical to the State Water Project, the state-run water delivery network that moves water north to south through California.

Wet Winter Fails to Solve California’s Forest Problems

Despite the wet winter and far-above-average Sierra Nevada snowpack, California forests remain at risk from tree mortality, bark beetle infestations and overgrown landscapes, according to presentations at the 2017 California Farm Bureau Federation Leaders Conference.(Left) Timber operator and Tuolumne County Farm Bureau President Shaun Crook during the California Farm Bureau Leaders Conference in Sacramento. Photo/Ching Lee. During the event, foresters and forest landowners discussed all those issues and communicated concerns directly to Randy Moore, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest regional forester, who participated as a guest speaker.

Has Lake Tahoe Ever Looked More Beautiful Than It Does Right Now?

A powerful and unrelenting winter blast coated the Northern Sierra Nevada this winter. Back-to-back storms buried the Lake Tahoe area in snow, crippling transportation, shuttering ski resorts, knocking out power and disrupting the daily lives of thousands. In the first three weeks of January alone, the region received nearly a full winter’s worth of snow, and then came February, and the Sierra Nevada was slammed yet again with moisture-packed storms fueled by weather systems known as atmospheric rivers.

Area Water Basins Still Hovering At Record Low Levels, Managers Say

While this winter’s precipitation was good news for Northern California, that story doesn’t translate to much of the Inland Empire, area water managers said Tuesday. “The precipitation that refills our underground storage basins is actually below average, so far,” said Bob Tincher, manager of water resources for San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District. “So if it were to stop raining today, even with the wet year in Northern California, our groundwater storage levels could actually decrease again this year.” The Inland Empire needs three consecutive above-average precipitation years to refill local groundwater basins, he said.

 

NID: Snow ‘Reservoir’ In Good Shape – This Year

Mitch Brown jammed the blade of his loader into a two-story pile of snow outside Donner Ski Shop, the sports rental store he runs. From there, Old Highway 40 toward bustling ski resorts was lined with walls of snow more than 20 feet high. “It snowed nearly 24 feet in 12 days,” Brown said recently. “We’ve been working 18-hour days to clear it. This winter’s bumper crop of snow — on the heels of the worst drought in 500 years — underscores the threat to this central source of water for western Nevada County and most of California.

Damage At Contra Costa County Reservoir Halts Pumping

The extraordinary volume of water pouring through California’s rivers and reservoirs this winter appears to be behind more damage to the state’s water infrastructure. State officials said Tuesday that an intake structure at Clifton Court Forebay, a 2½ mile-wide reservoir in eastern Contra Costa County, would be shut down because it needs repairs after heavy inflows.

Delta Plan Aims To Store More Water In Valley Aquifers

Although it’s a bit of a surprise that precipitation in the Sacramento River watershed is running more than 200 percent of average, the fact that we have returned to wetter than average years after a run of drier than average years is not. This has been the pattern in California for over 150 years, and this pattern is unlikely to change in the next 150. But the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project were not designed to accommodate this climate variability.

LaMalfa Urges President Trump To Help Facilitate Oroville Dam Spillway Repair

Congressman Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) issued the following statement after sending a letter, along with many of his colleagues in the California congressional delegation, urging President Trump to take immediate action to facilitate the work required to repair the two Oroville Dam spillways that were damaged in the February 2017 storm events. The damage forced the mandatory evacuation of nearly 200,000 residents, and President Trump responded by declaring a Major Emergency and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist local and state officials and provide aid to evacuees.

Just Weeks After Oroville Dam Crisis, Damage Found In Another Key California Reservoir

California water officials, still struggling with fixes at Oroville Dam, will have to temporarily shut down the pumping station that delivers water to much of Southern California and Silicon Valley after discovering damage at another key state reservoir. The state Department of Water Resources confirmed Tuesday that operators discovered damage to the intake structure at the Clifton Court Forebay, a nearly two-mile-wide reservoir that stores water for the State Water Project pumping plant in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Tracy. Repairs will begin Wednesday. It’s not clear how long they will last.

BLOG: The Dangers Of Land Subsidence From California’s Groundwater Overdraft

Land subsidence from overpumping groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley has been called the largest human alteration of the Earth’s surface. When the last comprehensive surveys were made in 1970, subsidence in excess of one foot had occurred over more than 5,200 square miles (13,000 sq km) of irrigable land – half the entire valley. Southwest of Mendota, a town that prides itself on being the cantaloupe center of the world, maximum subsidence was estimated at 28 feet (8.5m). By this time, however, massive infusions of surface water were being delivered to the valley, and subsidence was slowing or had been “arrested.”