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Northern California has been blessed this year with generally full reservoirs and good snowpack in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade. This has led to full water allocations throughout the Sacramento Valley, which has been welcomed by cities and rural communities, farmers, refuge managers, and fish—all of which have suffered in different ways from reduced supplies … Continue reading “2016 Water Supplies Shaping Up”

The groundwater resources in the Sacramento Valley have been taxed during the past four dry years, with less surface water available and more reliance on groundwater resources. With the recent storms in Northern California and most of the Sacramento Valley in flood operations, now is an ideal time to recharge the groundwater resources to keep … Continue reading “Recharging Groundwater in Yolo County”

Tuesday, March 22, 2016 – Shasta Reservoir has topped out at 3.9 million acre-feet of storage for the past four days as the Bureau of Reclamation ramped up flood releases to make sure the reservoir has enough capacity. The releases have been set at 17,000 cubic-feet per second so that they will also help flush gravels below the reservoir for the benefit of spawning salmon. Oroville Reservoir is steadily filling and just passed the 2.84 million acre-foot mark this morning. In less than a week, Shasta went from below-average storage to making flood releases.

Northern California water suppliers joined with farmers, fishery agencies, California Trout, and Ducks Unlimited this week at the Wallace Weir along the Yolo Bypass to appreciate the recent rains and to showcase the various efforts to improve salmon habitat in the Sacramento Valley. The following video with RD 108 General Manager Lewis Bair describes this collaboration and the Sacramento Valley Salmon Recovery Program.