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Deep Snowpack Could Ease California Water Restrictions

/in /by /The Weather Network

Three years after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown stood on a dry, brown mountainside and declared a drought emergency, state water scientists trekked to the same spot near Sacramento on Thursday to measure nearly four feet of snow – about twice as much as is normal for March and April at that location.  “California enters the snowmelt season with a large snowpack that will result in high water in many rivers through the spring,” State Climatologist Michael Anderson said in a statement.

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Trump Approves Funds For California Relief, Including $274 Million For Oroville Dam

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Christopher Cadelago

President Donald Trump announced Sunday more than a half-billion dollars would be coming to California to help cover the damage from the winter storms, including $274 million for repairs to the Oroville Dam spillway. The fulfillment of the fourth presidential declaration for damage from the winter storms totals an estimated $540 million. Gov. Jerry Brown appealed for financial assistance last month in Washington. Brown met with Robert Fenton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as part of the Democratic governor’s outreach to the new administration and congressional Republicans who control federal spending.

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Have SoCal’s Water Supplies Recovered? Depends On Where You Live

/in /by /89.3 KPCC (Los Angeles)by Emily Guerin

Here in California, we’ve been on a roller coaster when it comes to water. After five years of crippling drought, the Golden State had one of its wettest winters on record. So what has all the rain and snow meant for our water supply in Southern California? It depends on where you live and where your water comes from. About thirty percent of Southern California’s water comes from far, far away: Lake Oroville, a giant reservoir in the Sierra Nevada about 80 miles north of Sacramento.

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Lead in Water at San Diego Schools: What We Know and Don’t Know

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: Carlsbad Desalination Plant

In the past several months, three schools in the San Diego region have revealed the presence of alarming levels of lead in their drinking water. Lead is unsafe at any level and it is especially damaging to children’s brains. Now, San Diego Unified and other school districts across the county are moving to test many more schools. Here’s what we know and what we do not.

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Lead In Water At San Diego Schools: What We Know And Don’t Know

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: Carlsbad Desalination Plant

In the past several months, three schools in the San Diego region have revealed the presence of alarming levels of lead in their drinking water. Lead is unsafe at any level and it is especially damaging to children’s brains. Now, San Diego Unified and other school districts across the county are moving to test many more schools. Here’s what we know and what we do not. At La Mirada Elementary School in San Ysidro, samples taken last fall found alarming levels of lead coming from eight drinking fountains.

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Board Members Get Paid For Meetings That Aren’t Public

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby James DeHaven Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

If a government meeting convenes in San Diego and there’s no agenda or minutes, did it really happen? This is one of the questions California lawmakers hoped to avoid with passage of the Brown Act, the 1953 open meeting law that generally prohibits a majority of the members of a public board or council from meeting, discussing or deliberating government matters outside of a publicly noticed meeting.

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Huge Snowpack Prompts California Officials To Revisit Drought Status

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

Is California about to formally declare an end to its five-year drought? After abundant winter rainfall and snow accumulation, state officials plan an announcement about California’s “drought status” within the next week, said Doug Carlson, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources. Exactly when the statement will come is still unknown, as is when and if the State Water Project will increase its current allocation of 60 percent of its 29 member water agencies’ requested supplies, Carlson said.

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How The Massive Sierra Nevada Snowpack Will Help Power Homes

/in /by /San Luis Obispo Tribuneby John Lindsey

In these elevated locations, the prefrontal winds lifted the low-level subtropical moisture over California’s mountain ranges and cooled it approximately 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit for each 1,000 feet of elevation. This process is called the saturated adiabatic lapse rate, which wrings out the moisture from the heavens like squeezing a wet sponge or mop — in other words, orthographic enhancement. Rainfall amounts in the Santa Lucia Mountains have been breathtaking. Rocky Butte has logged 79 inches; typically this station receives about 40 inches a year.

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Oroville Dam Documents Kept Secret By State, Federal Officials

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

Citing potential security risks, state and federal officials are blocking the public’s ability to review documents that could shed light on repair plans and safety issues at crippled Oroville Dam. One of the secret reports is a memo from an independent panel of experts brought in to guide state officials’ repair plans. Another confidential document is labeled a “Project Safety Compliance Report.” The secrecy on the part of state dam operators prompted state Sen. Jim Nielsen to call for an immediate oversight hearing.

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Why Oroville Dam’s Woes Could Cut Into California Water Supplies

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee by Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

The fractured spillway at Oroville Dam has forced the state to spend tens of millions of dollars on emergency repairs, with millions more to come. Here’s another potential cost: a slice of California’s water supply. Dam operators are expected to run Lake Oroville, the state’s second largest reservoir, at lower-than-usual water levels this summer as they wrestle with the complicated and lengthy task of fixing the dam’s broken spillway.

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