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‘I Will Not Stay Here’: Life Near California’s Oroville Dam Is Now Shadowed By Fear

/in /by /Business Insider (New York)by Jocelyn Gecker and Marcio J. Sanchez

Northern California residents, who had spent days at evacuation shelters, were allowed to return to their homes but many stayed only long enough to pack valuables before fleeing an approaching storm that will test recently repaired spillways at the nation’s tallest dam. Authorities say the immediate danger has passed for the nearly 200,000 people living downstream of the Oroville Dam. They said the Lake Oroville water level was 26 feet below the emergency spillway by Wednesday night.

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Oroville Dam Update: Atmospheric River Looms As Spillway Continues To Dump Water Into Feather River

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Lillis and Dale Kasler

The water level at Lake Oroville continued to drop Thursday as state officials pressed on with the effort to drain the reservoir in light of a forecast calling for an “atmospheric river” to strike the area beginning Monday. The lake level fell by nearly 5 feet in the 12-hour period ending at 8 a.m., dropping to below 869 feet. That was about 32 feet below the top of Oroville Dam even as the first in a series of storms hit the Oroville region late Wednesday.

 

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A Bee Mogul Confronts The Crisis In His Field

/in /by /The New York Timesby Stephanie Strom

A soft light was just beginning to outline the Tejon Hills as Bret Adee counted rows of wizened almond trees under his breath. He placed a small white flag at the end of every 16th row to show his employees where they should place his beehives. Every so often, he fingered the buds on the trees. “It won’t be long,” he said. Mr. Adee (pronounced Ay-Dee) is America’s largest beekeeper, and this is his busy season. Some 92,000 hives had to be deployed before those buds burst into blossom so that his bees could get to the crucial work of pollination.

 

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Butte County Supervisor Has Fought With DWR For Years Over Dam Compensation, Maintenance Concerns

/in /by /OrovilleMRby Risa Johnson

Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly has been openly opposed to the Department of Water Resources’ actions for over a decade and is hoping the national spotlight will now push forward things the county has sought for years. Butte County filed a petition Wednesday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency which allows the DWR to operate the dam. The county asked FERC to order the DWR to hire its own public safety personnel or reimburse the county for its losses because of Oroville Dam’s damaged spillway.

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All Eyes On Lake Berryessa’s ‘Glory Hole’ As Reservoir Approaches Capacity

/in /by /Napa Valley Registerby Barry Eberling

For the first time in 11 years, water splashed down the funnel drain at Lake Berryessa last weekend, as people watched from Monticello Dam and a drone flew overhead to capture this historic moment. But was the spill legitimate? Was the federal reservoir fully at capacity after years of drought? As it turned out, the spillage had speed boat assistance. Water craft created waves pushing water the final few inches over the top of the giant, 72 feet in diameter concrete funnel nicknamed the “glory hole.”

 

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Tree Mortality Epidemic In California Forests Keeps Spreading

/in /by /Capital Press (Salem, Ore.)by Tim Hearden

Drought, pests and overcrowded forests are contributing to a tree mortality epidemic in the Sierra Nevada that’s rapidly spreading, the leader of a state task force says. Aerial surveys by the U.S. Forest Service last year found 36 million more dead trees, bringing the number of trees that have died in California forests since 2010 to more than 102 million, according to the state Tree Mortality Task Force. The mortality epidemic has spread from the Fresno area to Placer County and is continuing to move north, said Gabe Schultz, the task force’s Redding-based chairman.

 

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Oroville Dam’s Flood-Control Manual Hasn’t Been Updated For Half A Century

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Andy Furillo

The critical document that determines how much space should be left in Lake Oroville for flood control during the rainy season hasn’t been updated since 1970, and it uses climatological data and runoff projections so old they don’t account for two of the biggest floods ever to strike the region. Independent experts familiar with the flood-control manual at Oroville Dam said Wednesday there’s no indication the 47-year-old document contributed to the ongoing crisis involving the dam’s ailing spillways. The current troubles stem from structural failures, not how the lake’s flood-storage space was being managed.

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Santa Clara County’s Largest Dam On Cusp Of Spilling Over

/in /by /Times Standard (Eureka)

Officials say a reservoir in Santa Clara County is on the cusp of spilling over for the first time since 2006. But KNTV reported Wednesday (http://bit.ly/2ljg9TP) that unlike Oroville Dam, the Anderson Reservoir is not at risk of failure or causing major flooding. County officials are warning nearby residents to watch out for flooding. At 99.3 percent full, authorities are trying to drain the reservoir before storms arrive.

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Oroville Dam: Residents Allowed To Return As Water Level Drops

/in /by /CNNby Holly Yan, Paul Vercammen and Steve Almasy

With the water level at California’s Lake Oroville dropping, authorities lifted a mandatory evacuation order, allowing tens of thousands of residents to return to homes near the reservoir’s dam. But Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea on Tuesday cautioned residents and business owners to “maintain situational awareness” with a series of storms forecast for later in the week. “People who have special needs or require extended time to evacuate should consider remaining evacuated,” the sheriff said. Heavy rains last week caused the lake level to rise until the water began to pour down the emergency spillway on Sunday.

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Lake Oroville Critical To California’s Complex Water System

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by Capital Press)

Lake Oroville and its dam in Northern California are critical components in California’s complex water-delivery system. Damage to spillways that are used to drop water levels in the lake and relieve pressure on the dam prompted evacuation orders covering nearly 200,000 people. Here’s a look at Lake Oroville and its place in California’s water system: How important is Lake Oroville? Lake Oroville is the starting point for California’s State Water Project, which provides drinking water to 23 million of the state’s 39 million people and irrigates 750,000 acres of farms.

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