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PG&E Urges Planning For National Dam Safety Awareness Day

/in /by /East Valley Times (Palo Cedro)by Judy La Russa

In recognition of National Dam Safety Awareness Day on May 31, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) urges those living or working below dams to recognize the signs of a potential dam breach and to have or update an evacuation plan. PG&E’s  97 storage reservoirs are used primarily for generating hydropower and are generally far smaller than state and federal multi-year water storage reservoirs like Lake Oroville and Shasta Lake. In February, damage to the Oroville Dam spillway led to evacuations in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties.

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DWR: Spillway Construction Ahead Of Schedule, Workers Seen On Spillway

/in /by /KRCR News (Redding)by Jerry Olenyn

For the first time since the reconstruction process began on the Oroville Dam spillway, workers could be seen on the damaged spillway. Construction of the new spillway is approximately one week ahead of schedule, according to Jagdeep Sidhu, an engineer with the Department of Water Resources Program Control Section.  The first area of work on the spillway itself is focusing on the lower chute where the water flows into the Feather river.

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Irrigation Enhancement Project Helps Farmers Regulate Water Usage

/in /by /Register-Pajaronian (Watsonville) by Johanna Miller

A new irrigation enhancement project has seen positive results for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. The project, which took three years to be designed and funded, and only months to be built, cuts down on water usage from the South San Joaquin Valley Irrigation District that backs up in the Stanislaus River. “This grew out of an idea I had,” said Sam Bologna, Engineering Department manager of the South San Joaquin Valley Irrigation District and developer of the project, who was recently in Monterey attending an Association of California Water Agencies conference. “We needed to find a way to serve farmers and also conserve water.”

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Rapid Snowmelt Causes Floods, Impacts Recreation

/in /by /Lake Tahoe Newsby Kathryn Reed

Memorial Day weekend is usually the start of summer for most of the country. For Lake Tahoe, it’s really the end of winter. This coming weekend won’t be any different. While the forecast is for sunny skies and highs in the mid- to high 60s, the remnants of winter will likely be felt by people who are near any body of water and on hiking-biking trails. The National Weather Service in Reno has issued a flood watch that is in effect through 11pm May 24 for South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Bridgeport, Mammoth Lakes, Stateline, Incline Village, Carson City, Reno and Gardnerville.

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Rancho Santa Fe Water District Plans Double-Digit Rate Hike

/in /by /Rancho Santa Fe Reviewby Joe Tash Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Customers of the Santa Fe Irrigation District (SFID) are looking at double-digit increases in their water bills next year, based on a proposed spending plan that will be considered for adoption by the district’s board of directors in June. The rate hike, which is planned for Jan. 1, 2018, will total between 11 and 13 percent, said Jeanne Deaver, the district’s administrative service manager. This includes a 9 percent rate hike imposed by the district, plus a “pass-through” of between 2 and 4 percent based on expected rate increases by the district’s wholesale water supplier, the San Diego County Water Authority.

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Most California Farm-Water Suppliers are Breaking This Law. Why Doesn’t the State Act?

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Phillip Reese

During California’s epic five-year drought, most of the state’s irrigation districts didn’t comply with a 2007 law that requires them to account for how much water they’re delivering directly to farmers, a Bee investigation has found. State regulators are largely powerless to stop them, but they don’t seem too bothered by it. They say they’d rather switch to a different form of reporting. Farm-advocacy groups say irrigation districts have been bombarded with a confusing slew of state and federal laws and regulations that often have overlapping reporting requirements, so it’s no wonder their compliance rates are low.

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Op-Ed the Ludicrous Plan to Pump Mojave Water to L.A.

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Peter H. Brooks

In 1992, prospectors in Los Angeles hatched an idea for a new water supply that was improbable and speculative, even by Southern California standards. Far off in the Mojave Desert, beneath the flat dry lake bed of the Cadiz Valley, millennia’s worth of groundwater could be pumped and piped 43 miles to the Colorado River Aqueduct, the crown jewel of the Metropolitan Water District’s massive web of infrastructure. The water then could be sold to any of the 26 member agencies of the MWD.

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Oroville Spillway Gates Close for Season to Make Way for Repairs

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

The Department of Water Resources ramped down the Oroville Dam flood control spillway flows from 20,000 cubic feet per second to zero cfs on Friday. With no more water gushing down the spillway, contractors working for DWR will start working full-time to shore up the badly damaged spillway before next winter. Flows to the Feather River were gradually reduced over multiple days, water officials said. The Lake Oroville water level was at 829.49 feet at the time the spillway gates were closed. The maximum water level is 901 feet.

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Floating Solar Would be a San Diego County First

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Phil Diehl Quoted: Kelly Rodgers

The push for alternative energy sources has led the San Diego County Water Authority to consider a new possibility — floating solar panels on the surface of the agency’s only reservoir.

The 20-acre installation proposed for the Olivenhain Reservoir near Escondido would be the first in Southern California, although several floating panel projects are underway in Northern California and in Japan.

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Endless Winter? California Ski Resorts Plan to Keep Slopes Open This Summer

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hugo Martin

Californians, blessed with the natural resources to ski and surf in the same day, may be able do both deep into summer for the first time in years. One of the wettest winters in decades has stretched the season for most California and Nevada ski resorts by up to two months, helping them regain business lost because of too much snow early in the year. At Mammoth Mountain in the Eastern Sierra and Squaw Valley west of Lake Tahoe, the slopes are expected to remain open through the Fourth of July weekend — and perhaps beyond.

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