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Oroville Dam: Residents Allowed To Return As Water Level Drops

/in /by /CNNby Holly Yan, Paul Vercammen and Steve Almasy

With the water level at California’s Lake Oroville dropping, authorities lifted a mandatory evacuation order, allowing tens of thousands of residents to return to homes near the reservoir’s dam. But Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea on Tuesday cautioned residents and business owners to “maintain situational awareness” with a series of storms forecast for later in the week. “People who have special needs or require extended time to evacuate should consider remaining evacuated,” the sheriff said. Heavy rains last week caused the lake level to rise until the water began to pour down the emergency spillway on Sunday.

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Lake Oroville Critical To California’s Complex Water System

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by Capital Press)

Lake Oroville and its dam in Northern California are critical components in California’s complex water-delivery system. Damage to spillways that are used to drop water levels in the lake and relieve pressure on the dam prompted evacuation orders covering nearly 200,000 people. Here’s a look at Lake Oroville and its place in California’s water system: How important is Lake Oroville? Lake Oroville is the starting point for California’s State Water Project, which provides drinking water to 23 million of the state’s 39 million people and irrigates 750,000 acres of farms.

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Dam Our History: What the Oroville Crisis Means for San Diego

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Randy Dotinga

The Oroville Dam in Northern California may seem far removed from San Diego. But there are millions of reasons, most in gallon form, for locals to be keeping an eye on the ongoing battle to keep its emergency spillway from collapsing. The dam, as the L.A. Times puts it, is the “linchpin” of the statewide water system that brings water from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Southern California. Its fate affects our water supply. And that’s not all.

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L.A. Area Braces For What Could Be Biggest Storm Of The Season; Flooding, Mudslides Possible

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hailey Branson-Potts

A powerful new storm is expected to arrive in Southern California on Friday, and it could provide a walloping, with possible flash flooding, mudslides and rock slides. “The Friday storm in particular could in fact become the strongest of the season in the Los Angeles region,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

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Officials Confident Oroville Dam Will Withstand New Rainstorm: ‘It’s Holding Up Really Well’

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paige St. John

Even as rain began to fall in Northern California on Wednesday, state officials said the storms forecast over the next few days will not be enough to test the integrity of the Oroville Dam or its two damaged spillways. Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, called the storms “fairly small” and said the public “won’t see a blip in the reservoir” levels, now dropping about eight inches an hour.

 

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In What Kind Of Condition Are San Diego’s Dams?

/in /by /CBS8 News Quoted: James Palen

A comprehensive condition assessment of nine dams owned by the city of San Diego has been underway for the past year, according to the Public Utilities Department said. Asked about the condition of San Diego dams after Sunday’s mass evacuation in Oroville in Northern California, department officials told City News Service that they hired independent experts in dam design, construction and safety to perform detailed inspections of the dams in February of last year.

 

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Why Keep The Salton Sea?

/in /by /High Country News (Paonia, Colo.)by Patrick Stein

In 1905, an engineer gave California a lake. He didn’t do it on purpose; the cuts he made in a canal a few miles into Mexico burst open, releasing the full force of a flooding Colorado River into the Imperial Valley. For two years it filled a pit known as the Salton Sink, in southeastern California, until the government managed to close the breach.

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Shasta Dam Set For High Release For Next Few Weeks

/in /by /Redding Record Searchlight

Flood water from the Sacramento River will continue to be a concern for residents along the river as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation releases 79,000 cubic feet per second from Shasta Dam for the next couple of weeks. The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office says residents along the river should be aware of rising flood water. The Redding and Anderson Police Departments will be working with the California Highway Patrol, Redding Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as flooding occurs.

 

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Satellite Images How How Much Central Coast Reservoirs Have Filled In Just One Month

/in /by /The Tribune (San Luis Obispo)by Janene Scully

Images captured by a satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base four years ago show the dramatic difference in water levels for two Central Coast reservoirs after recent rains. The U.S. Geological Survey posted a Landsat 8 image from Dec. 29, showing low water levels for Lake San Antonio in Monterey County and Lake Nacimiento in both San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties. California’s drought left Lake Nacimiento only 22 percent full as of late last year.

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OPINION: Avoiding the Next Oroville Dam Disaster

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicle

At 770 feet, the Oroville Dam is the nation’s highest. At 48 years old, it’s certainly not the nation’s newest dam. It’s important to keep that fact in mind as crews work around the clock in an attempt to reinforce the dam’s damaged emergency spillway before the next round of rains begin later this week in Northern California. The Oroville Dam, like many of the dams, levees, seawalls, and other human efforts to contain nature, is a crucial piece of infrastructure that must be maintained and monitored.

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