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The events surrounding Oroville Dam this week have been a powerful reminder that the Sacramento Valley is a major floodplain and the water system is foremost a flood protection system, with public safety the first order of business. With nearly 200,000 people on the east side of the Sacramento Valley evacuated from their homes and … Continue reading “A Harrowing Week in the Sacramento Valley”

As we write this blog (February 9), there is a LOT of water in Northern California! The Sacramento River right above Fremont weir is flowing at 125,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) and climbing.  This equals more than 935,000 gallons per second or more than 3.366 billion gallons per hour. As a result of all … Continue reading “The Drought Paradox in California….When is a Drought not a Drought?”

For more than two decades, water management entities in the Sacramento Valley have engaged in an aggressive effort to construct fish screens at all of the high priority diversions identified by state and federal fishery agencies. As a result, all but two of the high-priority diversions have been screened. The following infographic helps describe the … Continue reading “New Fish Screen Program Infographic”

The past several years have been a good reminder that California’s hydrology is both variable and unpredictable. This variability is one reason that the proposed Sites Reservoir is so important and valuable to California. In 2015, with hardly any snowpack or rainfall in Northern California, Sites Reservoir could have captured 660,000 acre-feet of water from … Continue reading “Saving Water for California’s Future: The Public Benefits of Sites Reservoir”