DAILY DIGEST: Sierra snowpack ‘pretty phenomenal’, but is it record breaking?; CA faces $50B price tag for flood control fixes; Some rain coming, but officials say Oroville dam won’t have trouble; Water rule rollback gives growers what they wanted from Trump; and more …

In California water news today, ‘Phenomenal’ snowpack brightens California water outlook; Sierra Nevada snowpack ‘pretty phenomenal’, but is it record breaking?; What we’ve learned from California’s 2017 floods so far; California flood control called a life and death crisis, but federal funding is uncertain; California faces $50B price tag for flood control fixes; Some rain coming, but officials say dam won’t have trouble; Fish rescue operation continues along the Feather River; Oroville Dam: Debris dumped into pond near diversion dam; Spring salmon season may be limited; Rains ease the drought, and boost California’s power supply, too; ‘A tragedy’: Hundreds of thousands of California residents exposed to contaminated water; Water rule rollback gives growers what they wanted from Trump; Trump Administration takes aim at clean water rule; and more …

In the news today …

‘Phenomenal’ snowpack brightens California water outlook:  “The chances of an abundant water supply for California growers this summer keep improving as the water content in snowpack remains far above normal.  The state Department of Water Resources third manual snow survey of the season found a snow-water equivalent of 43.4 inches on March 1 — well above the average of 24.3 inches for the date.  “It’s not the record, the record being 56.4 (inches), but it’s still a pretty phenomenal snowpack,” state snow survey chief Frank Gehrke told reporters after the survey at Phillips Station, about 90 miles east of Sacramento. “January and February came in with some really quite phenomenal atmospheric river storms, many of which were cold enough to really boost the snowpack.” ... ”  Read more from Capital Press here:  ‘Phenomenal’ snowpack brightens California water outlook

Sierra Nevada snowpack ‘pretty phenomenal’, but is it record breaking?  “There’s “a pretty phenomenal snowpack” in the Sierra Nevada, but not enough to break the record for the same date set in the winter of 1969.  The state’s March 1 “snow-water content” survey at Phillips Station off Highway 50 measured snow packed 113 inches deep. Melted down, that would be the equivalent of 43 inches of water. The readings represent 179 percent of the long-term average, said Frank Gehrke, the veteran Department of Water Resources official who runs the snow survey.  That’s the fifth-highest March 1 reading on record for Phillips Station. The March record for the site was set in 1969, when readings showed 57.4 inches of snow-water content. ... ”  Read more from the Sacramento Bee here:  Sierra Nevada snowpack ‘pretty phenomenal’, but is it record breaking?

What we’ve learned from California’s 2017 floods so far:  “What a wild water month! Floods, spillway damage and levee failures! Mass evacuations!  And Donald Trump and Barack Obama are not even remotely to blame!  Flood control and preparation are vitally important for California. Now we remember.  This year, we see California’s raw, boisterous and often irresistible flood potential. And we see the value and cost for being prepared for floods, even in dry years.  Here are some recent flood observations. ... ”  Read more from Water Deeply here:  What we’ve learned from California’s 2017 floods so far

California flood control called a life and death crisis, but federal funding is uncertain:  “Experts say California’s Oroville dam crisis demonstrates the life-and-death urgency of federal spending to upgrade aging dams. But there are doubts about whether President Donald Trump will agree.  California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird told the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday that further deterioration of the nation’s aging flood control and water infrastructure systems will put lives at risk. … ”  Read more from the Sacramento Bee here:  California flood control called a life and death crisis, but federal funding is uncertain

California faces $50B price tag for flood control fixes:  “California faces an estimated $50 billion price tag for roads, dams and other infrastructure threatened by floods such as the one that severely damaged Oroville Dam last month, the state’s natural resources secretary said Wednesday.  Nearly 200,000 people living near the country’s tallest dam were evacuated three weeks ago amid fears of a catastrophic flood after a chunk of concrete tore out the main spillway following heavy rains.  Swollen rivers, troubled levees and crumbling roads are causing havoc statewide as California copes with is likely its wettest year ever, California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird said. Severe winter storms have brought torrential rain and significant snow after five years of drought. ... ”  Read more from CBS Sacramento here:  California faces $50B price tag for flood control fixes

Some rain coming, but officials say Oroville dam won’t have trouble:  “While water releases from Lake Oroville are shut down as crews remove tens of thousands of cubic yards of debris, the National Weather Service is predicting light rains for the Mid-Valley this weekend.  According to the NWS, Yuba-Sutter will recieve from a quarter to a full inch of precipitation through the coming weekend.  The storm system will shift down from the Gulf of Alaska, and will be a fairly cool system. The Weather Service described it as “not an exceptionally wet system.” Officials don’t think it will have a negative impact on dam operations. … ”  Read more from the Appeal-Democrat here:  Some rain coming, but officials say dam won’t have trouble

Fish rescue operation continues along the Feather River:  “Fish splashed in ponds of the fairways at the Riverbend Park disc golf course.  Clint Garman, Christine Steenson, Daniel Thompson and Anthony Lombardi splashed through the mud and water with nets, scooping up steelhead, chinook salmon, a few perch and even a smallmouth bass along with wakasagi minnows from the ponds in the park.  The four Department of Fish and Wildlife workers were part of a larger group that teamed up with the Department of Water Resources to save as many fish as possible between Oroville and Yuba City that were displaced by the drop in flow of the Feather River when the water agency stopped the water in Oroville Dam spillway and reduced output from the Diversion Pool and the Thermalito Afterbay from 45,896 cfs on Monday to less than 2,300 cfs Wednesday afternoon. … ”  Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here:  Fish rescue operation continues along the Feather River

Oroville Dam: Debris dumped into pond near diversion dam:  “Trucks are moving debris from the Diversion Pool below Oroville Dam to various locations, including dumping it into a year-round pond that a nearby resident said is usually full of bass, bluegill and turtles.  The pond is sandwiched between the Brad Freeman Trail, Cherokee Road and train tracks connecting to the trestle running across the Diversion Pool.  Cash Colby, a structural designer who lives on Big O Street with a view of the pond, saw trucks unloading debris into the water beginning Monday night, he said. Trucks continued to dump material into the pond, which sits next to the Diversion Pool and runs into a creek, on Wednesday. ... ”  Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here:  Debris dumped into pond near diversion dam

Spring salmon season may be limited:  “Recent winter storms may be pulling California out of its five-year drought, but the effects of all that missed rain are still being felt by the Chinook salmon population. That’s why the upcoming season — which usually opens in April for Bay Area recreational fishers — will likely be more limited than last year’s, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday.  Preliminary forecasts released at a public meeting in Santa Rosa showed that the population of Chinook adults from the Sacramento fall run and the Klamath River fall run are lower than usual. … ”  Read more from SF Gate here:  Spring salmon season may be limited

Rains ease the drought, and boost California’s power supply, too:  “Even as dam spillways are put to the test and parts of Northern California flood, there’s a silver lining to all the rain, beyond ending the drought. It gives California more hydroelectric power.  “In the thick of the drought last year and previous years, the dam levels all over the Northwest actually were low. And so we didn’t have as much hydropower available, dispatchable, as we normally would want or expect,” said California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister. … ”  Read more from KQED here:  Rains ease the drought, and boost California’s power supply, too

‘A tragedy’: Hundreds of thousands of California residents exposed to contaminated water:  “The latest data from California’s Water Resources Control Board show 700,000 Californians are currently being exposed to contaminated water at home or at school.  Because the state data doesn’t account for the nearly 2 million Californians still relying on private wells or factor in contamination from Chromium-6, experts say the number of people with toxic water is likely even higher.  In addition to those with contaminated water, another 3,511 California households reported having wells that are still dry according to state data released in January, 2017.  … ”  Read more from NBC Bay Area here:  ‘A tragedy’: Hundreds of thousands of California residents exposed to contaminated water

Water rule rollback gives growers what they wanted from Trump:  “To hear John Duarte tell it, farmers knew the cavalry was coming to their rescue on election night. It’s one reason agricultural areas voted heavily for Donald Trump.  On Tuesday, Trump ordered his new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, to scale back the agency’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act.   The 1972 law is widely credited for reversing the decline in drinking water quality nationwide by controlling pollution to navigable waters.   A set of regulations known as the Waters of the U.S. rules, which extended the authority of the Clean Water Act to many small upstream tributaries and isolated wetlands, led growers to worry that a law aimed at developers and heavy industry would be applied to their ditches, canals and wetlands. … ”  Read more from the LA Times here:  Water rule rollback gives growers what they wanted from Trump

Trump Administration takes aim at clean water rule:  “Yesterday, Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking to roll back the Obama administration-era Clean Water Rule (also referred to as the Waters of the U.S. Rule). Put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers in 2015, it was an attempt to clarify years of confusion over which “waters of the United States” are protected from pollution under the Clean Water Act.  “Agencies and the courts agree that this term includes ‘navigable waters,’ such as rivers and lakes,” wrote Reagan Waskom, director of the Colorado Water Institute at Colorado State University, and David J. Cooper, senior research scientist and scholar professor at Colorado State University. “It also covers waterways connected to them, such as marshes and wetlands. The central question is how closely connected a water body must be to navigable waters to fall under federal jurisdiction.” … ”  Read more from Water Deeply here:  Trump Administration takes aim at clean water rule

In commentary today …

New levels of cooperation needed to address San Joaquin Valley water issues:  “Recent rains have not washed away the growing threat of water scarcity in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s largest agricultural region. Over time it could bring disruptive changes not only to the region’s farmers but also to rural communities, the local economy and the state as a whole. Resolving this problem will take creativity and cooperation.  While agriculture is a relatively small piece of the state’s economic pie, it’s vitally important in the Valley. The region’s farms are a nationally important source of produce and dairy. The Valley’s farm sector accounts for 25 percent of local revenue, 16 percent of local jobs – and 89 percent of annual net water use. Large parts of the Valley depend on unsustainable pumping of groundwater. ... ”  Read more from the Sacramento Bee here:  New levels of cooperation needed to address San Joaquin Valley water issues

One more unkind remnant of the Oroville crisis, says the Chico Enterprise-Record:  They write, “The final insult of the Lake Oroville spillway failure is this: While most of the state is celebrating the end of the drought, and the Feather River drainage downstream has flooded, the very real fact remains that the lake likely won’t be full at the beginning of summer.  We watch the rise and fall of the lake each year with a mixture of anger and bemusement.  Often the lake falls in the winter, when it should be rising, because the state is releasing water for fish in the river, to flush out the delta or to compensate for the federal government holding back water in Lake Shasta.  The state treats Lake Oroville like a bathtub, draining it and filling it with little regard for the marinas, campgrounds and would-be boaters on the lake. Water users downstream are more important to the folks in Sacramento than a bunch of pesky, complaining northerners. … ”  Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here:  One more unkind remnant of the Oroville crisis

Negligence of Oroville shows inconsistency, irony:  Rory Crowley writes, “The state has already started the spin campaign regarding the near catastrophe of Lake Oroville.  Some are taking it hook, line and sinker. Farmers are not.  Take Feather River’s fish for example. The dichotomy between fish and farmer was spun long ago. The fallacy goes like this: Fish and farmer are intricately connected because of water. Salmon and steelhead are in danger. Therefore, farmers must give up water because they took it from the fish.  The protagonist is the state of California — the Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Wildlife, the saviors. These are doing battle against the evil, fish-killing lords of agriculture. … ”  Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here:  Negligence of Oroville shows inconsistency, irony

In regional news and commentary today …

Santa Rosa records 52″ of rain in 1 year, most in history:  “For the 12 months ending at the end of February, 52.07 inches of rain fell in Santa Rosa, the most since records were first kept in 1902, a meteorologist said.  Though the rainy season doesn’t officially end until the end of June, rainfall tends to taper off toward the end of the season, said Jan Null, a meteorologist with San Francisco-based Golden Gate Weather Services who has been tracking the Bay Area’s weather for years.  Since the rainy season in San Francisco began in July through the end of February, 26.09 inches of rain fell on the city, good for the 9th wettest period on record for that duration, Null said. ... ”  Read more from SF Gate here:  Santa Rosa records 52″ of rain in 1 year, most in history

American Canyon invests in future reservoir for more water:  “American Canyon may have found an answer for boosting its long-term water supply needs, even if it is more than a decade away from being realized. It may also have discovered some nearby help for expanding its recycled water program.  The City Council last week authorized a plan to buy into the development of a new reservoir in California that would yield the city 2,000 acre feet of water a year. That amount is equivalent to about two-thirds of what the city now needs each year for its water needs, making it a significant boost to its future supplies. … ”  Read more from the Napa Register here:  American Canyon invests in future reservoir for more water

Timely start to hyacinth fight in the Delta:  “For the first time in years — maybe the first time ever — state officials on Wednesday launched their annual battle against Delta weeds on the very first date allowed under their permits.  Those permits allow for chemicals to be sprayed starting March 1 each year. Sure enough, boats were in the water on Wednesday at Village West Marina and in Discovery Bay, among other places, said Lynn Sadler, head of the state’s Division of Boating and Waterways.  “We’re thrilled to be started, and we are prepared to have this be our best year ever,” she said. ... ”  Read more from the Stockton Record here:  Timely start to hyacinth fight in the Delta

Stockton: San Joaquin River falls, but flood fight drags on:  “The San Joaquin River inched below “danger” stage about 1 p.m. Wednesday, but with towering snow drifts waiting to melt in the high country, this may be only a temporary reprieve.  At Vernalis, the river should drop below flood stage entirely by this evening. And it has lowered about a foot from its peak last week. But it is still flowing at its highest level since 1997; every two seconds, enough water passes downstream to fill one of Stockton’s 500,000-gallon water towers. … ”  Read more from the Stockton Record here:  Stockton: San Joaquin River falls, but flood fight drags on

Madera County supervisor takes water war to DC:  “During the annual legislative conference in Washington D.C., Madera County Supervisor David Rogers let lawmakers and supervisors from across the nation know he means business when it comes to fighting for water storage.  “There is no water shortage,” Rogers said when addressing attendees of the National Association of Counties (NACo) this week. “There is a shortage of water storage, and certainly a shortage of common sense water policy.  Rogers represents Madera County on NACo’s Agriculture and Rural Affairs steering committee. Rogers’ district is mainly agricultural land he has promised farmers he would continue the battle with Washington for Temperance Flat dam. ... ”  Read more from the Sierra Sun Times here:  Madera County supervisor takes water war to DC

Precipitation watch …

Also on Maven’s Notebook today …

• CA WATER LAW SYMPOSIUM: The future of Delta management
• SCIENCE NEWS: NASA data show San Joaquin Valley still sinking; Contaminants in the Bay Delta; California’s rain may shed light on new questions about what causes earthquakes; Slower snowmelt in a warming world; and more …
• NEWS WORTH NOTING: PPIC Report: Water stress and a changing San Joaquin Valley; Climate change and infrastructure risk: Media briefing report; A research guide to California water law
• REACTIONS to Central Valley Project Allocation
• OROVILLE DAM, Wednesday update: Progress on spillway; crews continue debris removal (with pictures & video)

 

Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post …

Sign up for free daily email service and you’ll get all the Notebook’s aggregated and original water news content delivered to your email box by 9AM. And with breaking news alerts, you’ll always be one of the first to know …

---

About the Daily Digest: The Daily Digest is a collection of selected news articles, commentaries and editorials appearing in the mainstream press. Items are generally selected to follow the focus of the Notebook blog. The Daily Digest is published every weekday with a weekend edition posting on Sundays.