The Sacramento Bee Archives

California Snowpack At 100 Percent Of Average As January Ends, State Officials Say

The Department of Water Resources conducted California’s second manual snow survey of the year Thursday at Phillips Station, which offered some good news for the state. DWR water resource engineer John King announced that snow water content doubled since the start of the month at the survey site near Echo Summit. “The snow depth today is 50 inches and the snow-water equivalent is 18 inches, which results in 98 percent of average to date and 71 percent of the April 1 average at this location,” King said. “This is a significant increase since the last survey, where we had just measured 25.5 inches of depth and 9 inches of snow-water equivalent.”

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Newsom Inherits A ‘Whole Bunch Of Headaches’ Despite Last-Minute Water Deals By Brown

January 8, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

As his term as governor drew to a close last month, Jerry Brown brokered a historic agreement among farms and cities to surrender billions of gallons of water to help ailing fish species. He also made two big water deals with the Trump administration — one to shore up support for his struggling Delta tunnels project, the other to transfer some of urban California’s water to Central Valley farmers whom the White House supports. It added up to a dizzying display of deal-making over an issue that confounded Brown during much of his four terms in Sacramento.

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Deal Could Avoid Shutdown, But California Wildfire And Water Measures Have To Wait

December 19, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Sacramento Beeby Emily Cadei

Congressional leaders reached a short-term spending deal Wednesday that effectively punts most of the contentious funding decisions into the new year. That includes the question of whether to extend a federal law designed to deliver more Northern California water south, which has become a factor in the Delta water-sharing agreement reached earlier this month. Congressional aides said federal wildfire recovery funding will have to wait until the new year. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday morning that the Senate would vote on a “simple measure that will continue government funding into February.” More precisely, the spending bill will fund the government through Feb. 8.

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California Cedes Water To Feds In Delta Deal With Trump

December 15, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave off significant water shortfalls for farms and cities across California. A powerful state agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, hasn’t yet signed off on Brown’s compromise environmental proposal. Environmental groups have called the governor’s idea woefully insufficient to save ailing fish populations.

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California Unveils $1.7 Billion Plan For Rivers, Fish. Will It Ward Off A Water War?

December 12, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Andrea Mora /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

Hoping to head off one of the biggest California water wars in decades, state officials Wednesday proposed a sweeping, $1.7 billion plan to prop up struggling fish populations across many of the state’s most important rivers. Capping 30 days of feverish negotiations, the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Wildlife unveiled a dramatic plan that would reallocate more than 700,000 acre-feet of water from farms and cities throughout much of the Central Valley, leaving more water in the rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to support ailing steelhead and Chinook salmon populations.

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Could this Obscure California Agency Derail Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels?

November 30, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Andrea Mora /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow, Alexei Koseff, and Dale Kasler

As Gov. Jerry Brown leaves office, his controversial Delta tunnels plan is on the ropes. Most farmers who would get water from the tunnels still haven’t agreed to pay their share. Rather than support the tunnels, the Trump administration is trying to bend federal environmental laws to simply deliver more water through the existing Delta system to San Joaquin Valley farms and cities — and just rejected the project’s request for a big startup loan. Brown’s successor, Gavin Newsom, says he would like to see the project scaled down. Lawsuits challenging the project abound.

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OPINION: San Joaquin Water Plan Is Good For The Delta And Valley

November 5, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Sacramento Beeby Peter Drekmeier

It’s fitting that the Bay Area was named after Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment. After all, the San Francisco Bay Delta was historically one of the most biologically productive ecosystems on Earth. Sadly, the estuary is now on the brink of ecological collapse. Starved of fresh water flow from rivers that feed the Bay, the salt balance has been altered dramatically, affecting everything from plankton to marine mammals and leading to toxic algae blooms that can make people sick and kill pets and wildlife. Problems extend up into the rivers that flow into the Delta.

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See Four Months Of Oroville Dam Spillway Construction In One Minute

November 5, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Sacramento Beeby David Caraccio

The California Department of Water Resources has released a time-lapse video showing four months of daily construction progress from June 26 through October 31. The camera angle looks up the lower chute of the spillway from the diversion pool until mid-August, then shifts to the middle chute from August 15 to September 11, where roller-compacted concrete was placed,” DWR said in an Nov. 1, 2018, YouTube post with the video. “The timelapse video then resumes footage from the lower chute vantage point from mid-August through October 31.”

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Oroville Dam Repairs Aren’t Enough, Feds Warn. Should State be Forced to Plan for a Mega-Flood?

November 1, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Andrea Mora /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

Federal regulators are raising new concerns about the troubled Oroville Dam, telling California officials their recently rebuilt flood-control spillways likely couldn’t handle a mega-flood. Although the chances of such a disastrous storm are considered extremely unlikely — the magnitude of flooding in the federal warning is far greater than anything ever experienced — national dam safety experts say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s concerns could have costly repercussions for California. The public agencies that store water in Lake Oroville may be forced to spend millions of dollars upgrading the dam.

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San Francisco Leaders Hate Trump Enough They Voted to Limit the City’s Water Rather Than do This

October 30, 2018/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Andrea Mora /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

For months, San Francisco, a hotbed of anti-Donald Trump sentiment, has found itself in the awkward position of being aligned with his administration over California water policy. On Tuesday, the city’s leaders said the alliance was unbearable. In an 11-0 vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed in a resolution to support the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposal to leave more water in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries to benefit struggling fish populations. The supervisors’ vote is subject to veto by Mayor London Breed, although the board could override the veto.

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