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April 21, 2017 CapitalPress.com 9 California Continuing storms lead to increase in SWP allocations, official says Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press SACRAMENTO — Con- tinuing rain and snow prompt- ed California to change course and increase State Water Proj- ect allocations right away rather than waiting for the Or- oville Dam rebuilding project to proceed. The state announced April 14 that SWP contractors north of the Sacramento-San Joa- quin River Delta would get their full allocations for the first time since 2006, while agencies south of the Delta would get 85 percent of nor- mal supplies. The increase from 60 per- cent came one day after act- ing Department of Water Re- sources director Bill Croyle said it could be May or June before a decision was made on whether to further boost deliveries. Croyle said the logistics of Oroville Dam repairs were hindering another increase. But this season has seen a re- cord 89.7 inches of precipita- tion at DWR weather stations in the northern Sierra Nevada and the number is still grow- ing, agency spokesman Ted Thomas said. “It’s just one of those years when the precipitation just doesn’t seem to be quit- ting,” Thomas told the Capital Press. “It’s building the snow- pack, which is a key factor.” The increase also coincides with completion of repairs to an eroded intake structure at Clifton Court Forebay, which feeds pumps at the south end of the Delta, officials said. The state allocation had remained at 60 percent since Jan. 18, even as this sea- son’s abundant rain and snow prompted the federal Central Valley Project to grant full allocations to virtually all of its contractors. They included the western San Joaquin Val- ley, which last year got only 5 percent of requested supplies. State officials have been preoccupied with the crisis at Lake Oroville, the SWP’s main reservoir, which irri- Courtesy of California Department of Water Resources Excavation continues just south of the Lake Oroville flood con- trol spillway while mist from the flowing spillway is seen in the background. Water officials last week said spillway repairs were preventing increases in State Water Project deliveries, but then increased those allocations the next day. Tim Hearden/Capital Press Bill Croyle, left, the acting California Department of Water Resources director, talks to a reporter outside the agency’s field office in Oroville, Calif., on April 13. gates more than 600,000 acres of Central Valley farmland and serves 20 million urban residents in Southern Califor- nia and the San Francisco Bay area. The lake has been a ver- itable construction zone in recent weeks, as crews have removed nearly 1.6 million cubic yards of debris. Gov. Jerry Brown has waived some permitting and review re- quirements so that new or re- inforced concrete could be in place on the upper stretch of the main spillway by a Nov. 1 target date. Croyle said at an April 13 news conference in Oroville that a potential increase in deliveries “comes down to making sure all the demands (for water) are being met,” which depends on how much water can be kept in the lake, he said. “I don’t have a full reser- voir,” Croyle told the Capital Press, adding his agency is forced to draw down the lake level to make room for runoff at a time of year when that isn’t typically necessary. But the continuing rain and snow leaves little doubt there will be enough water for ev- eryone. For instance, the first wave of a series of storms on April 16 dumped a half-inch of rain on Oroville and nearly an inch on nearby Paradise, according to the National Weather Service. The DWR resumed use of the flood control spillway at Oroville on April 14, releas- ing 35,000 cubic feet per sec- ond to make room for runoff from the massive snowpack that remains. The releases were to continue for a couple of weeks. “So far we’ve had fairly cool storms, and that’s good,” Thomas said. “If the weather remains cool up at the higher elevations, that will allow the snowpack to meter out slowly as we prefer. If we get really warm temperatures … then that will increase the snow- pack runoff.” The south-of-Delta alloca- tion could still increase again later this spring. “We’re hopeful we’ll be able to increase deliveries even more as we monitor con- ditions,” Croyle said. San Joaquin Valley grow- ers have complained they had to put off planting decisions or rely on guesswork as state and federal agencies took their time in determining their water allocations. Late-season boosts pro- vide more water for perma- nent plantings so they don’t have to turn to groundwa- ter, and perhaps will aid in fall planting, Fresno County Farm Bureau chief executive officer Ryan Jacobsen has said. The increase comes as the DWR also made an about- face of sorts regarding the release of certain records re- lated to the Oroville crisis. The agency at first re- buffed the Sacramento Bee in its effort to gain access to records the newspaper argues would show how Brown’s of- fice handled the February cri- sis at Oroville Dam that led to the two-day evacuation of about 188,000 area residents. The governor denied the Bee’s California Public Re- cords Act request, citing federal security regulations. That didn’t sit well with Re- store the Delta, an environ- mental group that is fighting Brown’s plan to build two tunnel bypasses around the Delta. “Restricting access to public records about the Oro- ville Dam is just another rea- son why Californians no lon- ger trust Governor Brown’s leadership on water and in- frastructure,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, the group’s executive director. The state has already faced criticism over report- ed warnings about the emer- gency spillway’s weakness from environmental groups in 2005 during the dam’s rel- icensing process. A lack of public access to such things as design speci- fications, inspection reports and internal communica- tions within Brown’s office would mean that Califor- nians wouldn’t know what the DWR knew before the crisis or who will pay for repairs, Barrigan-Parilla asserted. But Croyle said last week rop-16-3-7/#5 that the state will release some records, noting he is working with Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea and the U.S. Department of Home- land Security to redact infor- mation that officials believe could pose a security risk. “We are committed to pushing as much informa- tion out as we can,” he said, noting that state officials are planning a series of commu- nity meetings later this spring to answer questions about the dam. The spillway’s near fail- ure in February threatened a large portion of the Eastern Sacramento Valley’s $1.5 billion agriculture industry, including rice and tree crops and several major processors along the Highway 99 corri- dor between Chico and Yuba City, industry leaders said. About one-third of Butte County’s $773 million ag- riculture industry is within the affected corridor, Butte County agricultural commis- sioner Louie Mendoza said. Likewise, significant por- tions of Sutter County’s $544 million ag industry and Yuba County’s nearly $232 million industry were put at risk. 16-2-#18 Learning to do, Doing to Learn Earning to Live, Living to Serve. 16-2/#13