It didn’t really matter that Kyle Donohue hadn’t built an array of solar power panels before: Lincoln County wasn’t getting the same amount of electricity from the Hoover Dam as it used to. The lake behind the dam had dropped amid a historic drought, pushing up power costs for Lincoln County. At the same time, … Read more
Information from Caltrans: This winter’s powerful and near-constant storms took their toll on roads across our District. As a result, many of our area’s rivers flooded – in one case, the Eel River closed Route 211 at Fernbridge. The high, swiftly-moving floodwaters eroded riverbanks up and down the river’s length, and the banks of the … Read more
Click here to read our comments on Sonoma County Water Agency’s Fish Habitat Flows and Water Rights Project prepared by Shute, Mihaly, & Weinberger LLP. Learn more about the project here. A summary of our comments: I. The EIR fails to adequately describe the project II. The EIR fails to analyze or mitigate environmental impacts of … Read more
California fishermen are bracing for the worst salmon season in eight years, one so grim that many will likely sit the season out completely. Years of drought and unfavorably warm ocean conditions that existed when this year’s potential crop of king salmon was young have reduced the adult population to the lowest level forecast since … Read more
First part of a series. For nearly 50 years, Oroville Dam has been the linchpin of a sprawling state plumbing system that draws water from wet Northern California to 25 million people and thousands of acres of farmland in the arid south. That changed Feb. 7 when a crater as large as a football field … Read more
My local stream, Putah Creek, looks like a river these days. Water is pouring down the Glory Hole of Lake Berryessa and rushing in muddy turmoil from the ‘dry’ creeks that are its main tributaries. The creek’s deeply incised and leveed channel is containing the flows that once would have spread across the landscape. As … Read more
When state water officials scaled back their mass dumping of water from the damaged Oroville Dam this week, they knew the riverbed below would dry up enough to allow the removal of vast piles of debris from the fractured main spillway. But they apparently did not anticipate a side effect of their decision to stop … Read more
The plan to remove four hydroelectric dams to improve fish passage and water quality on the Klamath River is proceeding on schedule for a 2020 demolition time, according to plan proponents. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will ultimately have to approve or deny the plan, and the change in administration in Washington, D.C., has led … Read more
Today, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to begin repealing the Clean Water Rule, a landmark measure many years in the making. Likewise, new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently told Fox News that he plans to go “full speed ahead” to attack the rule. … Read more
Click here to read our full comments to the California Department of Water Resources on Humboldt County’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan Alternative. The excerpt below outlines one example of an adverse impact on the river resulting from unsustainable groundwater use. Strangely enough, after a series of historically dry, hot years, in the last weeks of August … Read more