A tornado briefly touched down in South Natomas, a Rio Linda church was flooded and the Sacramento River reached its highest point in 20 years Wednesday as the effects of a multiday storm continued to ripple through the region. But the heavy rain and snow that had pounded Northern California since Saturday mostly stopped, several highways and local roads reopened and the region largely avoided major flooding or widespread property damage.
The State Water Resources Control Board recently held a public hearing to receive input on its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The proposal would force the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts to dedicate 40 percent of unimpaired flows along the Tuolumne River to benefit fish and wildlife. David White is the CEO of Opportunity Stanislaus, a company that is all about improving the economic vitality of Stanislaus County. He noted how the proposal will negatively impact the local economy.
Over the weekend and into Monday morning, a powerful storm in Nevada and Northern California resulted in mudslides and flooding, caused more than a thousand people to evacuate their homes, took out power lines and brought down a famous sequoia “tunnel tree.” That storm is over, but residents can’t relax yet: Starting on Tuesday, a second potent winter storm is expected to hit the region.
Recent rain and snowfall conditions have us all hoping 2017 may be a wet year and offer a break in our six-year drought. But whether the drought is broken or not, Californians must act this year to achieve more sustainable long-term water management. California operates at a water deficit. Even in wet years, we use more surface and groundwater than is replenished by rainfall. It is not sustainable.
Big rains in California have dumped more than a million acre-feet of water into the state’s reservoirs since Jan. 1 but this week stalled the Central Valley’s navel and mandarin orange harvests, state and industry officials say. The storms had added 1.1 million acre-feet of water to California’s reservoirs by Jan. 9 with more to come, according to state officials, while prompting the opening of the Sacramento Weir — a flood-control bypass around the city — for the first time since 2006.
The back-to-back storms that pummeled California since last weekend are part of an atmospheric river event that has brought major flooding and damage to parts of Northern California. On Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for San Francisco. Up in the North Bay, the Russian River is still at flood stage in Guerneville while the Napa River near St. Helena will most likely flood again.
While some farmers lament the release of thousands of acre-feet of water from Friant Dam, others are putting it to good use: recharging groundwater supplies. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began releasing water from Millerton Lake to make room for a deluge of storm runoff. The move frustrated some farmers, who say spilling water into the river and eventually the ocean is a prime example of why the state needs to build a dam at Temperance Flat. Farming advocates are pushing for state and federal funding to build the $2.8 billion project.
What is the state doing to help with flooding along Cosumnes River? California Department of Water Resources says many of the levees are privately owned and the state doesn’t manage them. An official told us there hasn’t been any project improvements along the Cosumnes River in recent years because the land is privately owned not state owned. Department of Water Resources says it does provide assistance to fund projects for levee improvements as well as engineering help. An official said what the state has done is have a program available to help rather than go on private property.
Northern California continued to roar out of its prolonged drought Tuesday as yet another powerful storm blew in from the Pacific Ocean, drenching an already saturated Bay Area, filling some local reservoirs beyond capacity and creating dangerous white-out conditions in the northwestern Sierra Nevada. Shortly after noon, water began coursing down the Lexington Reservoir spillway for the first time since March 2011.
To see how close California is to being drowned by its recent winter storms, just look to the small crowd of spectators and TV newscasters gathered yesterday on the northwest side of the state capital hoping to watch state water managers open the gates of the Sacramento Weir. The weir, something between a dam and a levee, lets dangerously high water spill over its top into a long, narrow, floodplain filled with rice paddies, grain fields, and other row crops.
