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The floodgates at Oroville Dam in California were re-opened on Friday, March 17, for the first time since the end of February. The dam has been releasing water up to 50,000 cubic feet per second since, according to a press release. The flow in the Feather River also increased because of the release, and Lake Oroville’s level has dropped approximately four feet per day. The California Department of Water Resources expected to maintain the water flow for five to six days in order to bring down the lake level in order to provide sufficient storage for rain and snowmelt.

While federal funding is on its way to help Tuolumne County and others in California pay for damage related to storms in late January, more will be needed to cover the same for February. The assistance is the third request by Gov. Jerry Brown that the Trump administration has approved for more than $500 million in estimated damages throughout the state. That includes more than $6.8 million in Tuolumne County alone. “This will definitely help for sure,” said Deputy County Administrator Tracie Riggs, who serves as emergency services coordinator.

There are over 500 wells pumping water from the same source — the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Sub-Basin. That includes municipal wells in Manteca, Ripon, Lathrop, Stockton, and Lodi as well as agricultural wells and domestic wells serving rural homes. You may consider that irrelevant information given water comes out of your tap when you turn the faucet on. But what local agencies are doing in the next few years to create a framework to manage the water basin to meet a pending state mandate requiring groundwater basin sustainability will impact how freely water flows and determine who gets how much water.

After slowing to a trickle during the past five years of punishing drought, hydroelectric power in California is poised to make a major comeback this spring and summer, thanks to the wet winter. Across Northern California, hydroelectricity producers say their reservoirs are brimming at levels not seen in decades. Together, their dams should produce as much as 21 percent of the state’s total electricity output this year, according to projections from the California Energy Commission. That would be the highest percentage for hydropower since 2011, according to the commission’s Energy Almanac. That was the last wet winter before the drought.