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The Department of Water Resources plans to remove at least some of the debris at the bottom of the Oroville Dam spillway and study the structure, but just aren’t sure when they’ll have a chance to do that. The workers can’t just move into the Diversion Pool and pull out the concrete, mud and other debris that went into the water after the spillway broke Feb. 7 because water is still flowing at around 60,000 cubic feet per second and they’ll need heavy equipment to get the work done.

With the reservoir and all water district canals brimming, there is a great effort to move water into underground aquifer recharge ponds, said David Nixon, general manager of the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District in Kern County. “Absolutely, we tried to get every acre foot of water in this district we possibly can,” he said. “With that water at this time of year, before it’s needed by agriculture, it’s all about water storage and rebuilding that underground aquifer. “We have about 1500 acres of recharge ponds that we can use to refill the underground aquifer,” Nixon said.

California Department of Water Resources officials reached their goal of getting water levels in Lake Oroville 50 feet below the dam crest Monday.The reservoir reached 50 feet below capacity as of 6 a.m. Monday. The 850-foot mark is important because it gives ground crews more flexibility for water flowing into the lake during this week’s storms, DWR officials said. “It allows us to lower our outflows from the dam, so we can start working on the diversion pool,” said Chris Orrock, a DWR spokesman.

Earlier this week, while areas downstream of Oroville Dam were still under an evacuation order, California’s State Water Resources Control Board released a draft resolution for a comprehensive response to climate change. It resolves that the agency will embed climate science into all its existing work, both to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience to the impacts of climate change. In doing so, the state water board demonstrates how public agencies can respond more proactively to the challenges that global warming is bringing our way.