Eel River News
This Year’s Floods May Be Good for California’s Salmon
In the mid-1990s, a scientist named Ted Sommer commuted routinely by bicycle between Davis and Sacramento, on the causeway that passes over the vast floodplain called the Yolo Bypass. At the time, state biologists had observed that numbers of Sacramento River fish...
America’s Aging Dams Are in Need of Repair
After two weeks that saw evacuations near Oroville, Calif., and flooding in Elko County, Nev., America’s dams are showing their age. Nearly 2,000 state-regulated high-hazard dams in the United States were listed as being in need of repair in 2015, according to the...
Court Supports Order to Divert Water to Support Salmon
The federal government can redirect water from a Northern California dam to prevent mass die-offs of salmon in drought years, water that otherwise would be shipped to Central Valley farmers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had...
Dams Remain in Line for Bulk of Funding Over Cheaper Alternatives
WASHINGTON — Despite the spectacular near failure of Oroville Dam, a linchpin of California’s vast plumbing system, Congress and the state remain focused on building new dams and repairing existing ones. But they are giving short shrift to cheaper, more...
Disturbing Deficiencies Seen in California’s Dam Safety Efforts
The dam burst on a warm afternoon, unleashing nearly 300 million gallons of muddy water on a Los Angeles neighborhood. Five people died and dozens of homes were swept off their foundations and destroyed. In the aftermath of the 1963 Baldwin Hills Dam catastrophe, the...
Hazardous Tankers Here to Stay
It looks like those railroad tankers parked on the tracks near Schellville may be there for a while, under terms of a 30-year agreement reached between Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit (SMART), which owns the rail lines, and the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA),...
Action Alert: Eel River Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan
Humboldt County submitted an analysis of conditions in the lower Eel River groundwater basin claiming the basin has operated within sustainable yield for the past 10 years, and that it is unnecessary to adopt a groundwater sustainability plan. Given what we have seen...
In Peril at Oroville Dam, a Parable on Infrastructure
California officials have ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream from the Oroville Dam because overflowing waters could erode the dam’s two spillways and cause devastating flooding. Yet when public interest groups warned of such a threat in 2005,...
Nearly 200,000 Ordered Evacuated as Oroville Dam Danger Spikes
OROVILLE, Butte County — Nearly 200,000 people downriver from Lake Oroville were ordered to evacuate Sunday night after an emergency spillway next to the reservoir’s dam appeared in danger of collapse. While the integrity of Oroville Dam is not at risk, officials said...
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