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The drought-busting snow and rain in the mountains around Lake Tahoe have pushed the lake to its highest level in more than a decade. After five years of drought, the alpine lake atop the Sierra Nevada now has enough water to fill downstream reservoirs and meet the Reno area’s needs for at least two years, hydrologists say. “We are basically going from one extreme to the other in two years,” said Bill Hauck, senior hydrologist for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.

When California state biologists crested a sandbar along the Feather River on Tuesday morning, they expected to find at least some of the water that just a day before had raged through the channel, too deep to stand in – and plenty of fish needing to be rescued. Instead, to their chagrin, the flows powering down Oroville Dam’s badly damaged main spillway into the Feather River had been throttled back so quickly Monday that the whole sandbar was now dry. “Oh, no,” said biologist Alana Imrie.

The lead author in the House of Representatives of a big and controversial California water bill that passed last year is back for more. With a Republican in the White House and the GOP controlling Congress, Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., said Tuesday that he was hoping to build on last year’s legislation that was loved by farmers and loathed by environmentalists. The bill scales back an ambitious San Joaquin River restoration program, speeds completion of California dam feasibility studies and locks in certain water deliveries to Sacramento Valley irrigation districts, among other things.