For three weeks, Oroville Dam’s fractured main spillway and the surrounding hillsides have taken a nearly nonstop pounding. The stunning waterfall crashing down what’s left of the 3,000-foot concrete span has split the spillway in two and carved massive canyons on either side. The Department of Water Resources, which operates the dam, has had little choice.
The Rincon tribe has taken a major step to protect water quality on the reservation and downstream, earning approval by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to administer surface water standards on the reservation. According to Chairman Bo Mazzetti, in recognition of tribal sovereignty, the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) encourages tribes to establish water quality standards. Rincon was able to document and prove to the EPA that the band has the desire and ability to protect its water.
The bill to repair California’s crumbling roads, dams and other critical infrastructure hammered by an onslaught of storms this winter could top $1 billion, including nearly $600 million alone for damaged roadways that more than doubles what the state budgeted for road repair emergencies, officials said Friday. Adding to the problems, many communities have drained their emergency budgets and are looking to the state and federal government for help.
After successfully appealing to the Trump administration for help with the Oroville Dam emergency, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Friday that he wants to accelerate state spending to reduce flood risks as he asked Washington to expedite federal environmental reviews on several projects, including repairs to the dam’s spillway. The Democratic governor’s flood protection plan combines $50 million in existing general fund money with $387 million from the $7.5 billion water bond approved by voters in 2014.
The crisis at Oroville Dam should be a wake-up call to those making infrastructure decisions today that will affect Californians for many years to come. A centerpiece of the massive State Water Project, which provides water to 25 million Californians, has proved highly vulnerable to the kind of heavy winter rains we’ll see more often under climate change. Long a leader on action to curb climate change, California must now confront the inevitable impacts to which global greenhouse gas emissions have committed us.
Big news this morning as Bakersfield and most of Kern County has officially “recovered” from the drought! However the Frazier Park area, while also seeing an improvement as of this morning’s weekly Drought Monitor Report, remains on the line between “Moderate Drought” and the lowest ranking of “Abnormally dry”. This doesn’t mean the drought has ended however, since much of the Central Coast and Southern California remains in rankings of Abnormally Dry (D0) to Severe drought (D2).
The huge winter storms in California and out West produced a significant snowpack across the region and increased lake levels, setting the stage for major hydropower generation this year. Yet analysts say the boom in hydroelectricity could further depress power prices, which might be good news for rate payers but bad news ultimately for independent power producers, or IPPs. “The more hydro generation you have the less [natural] gas generation you should have,” Citi analyst Anthony Yuen told CNBC in an interview.
The number of “For Sale” signs compete with “Open” in the storefronts along the main street in this hilly town, where fortunes evaporated with the silver and zinc mines that created it. There’s no bank or grocery store. Mining has mostly vacated the area, leaving a clutch of retirees, some county workers, and not too many others. But this part of Nevada still has one resource that residents to the south in glitzy Las Vegas desperately want and need – water.
How much precipitation has fallen on Northern California this winter? So much that Squaw Valley expects to be open for skiing July 4. So much that Sacramento’s rainfall has surpassed that of traditional rainy meccas like Seattle and Portland, Ore. So much that the U.S. Drought Monitor, a study produced weekly by scientists from multiple federal agencies, reported Thursday that only 17 percent of California is still gripped by drought.
One of the worst storms in a decade pounded the Santa Ynez Valley and surrounding areas Friday, dumping more than 4 inches of wind-lashed rain, downing trees and power lines, sending mud and water into homes, flooding roadways, and contributing to a slew of vehicle crashes, highway closures, flash flood watches and evacuation warnings. The Valley was expected to get a brief respite from rain midweek, but forecasters said a low pressure area could drop down from the north Saturday, bringing another round of high winds and heavy rain.
