April 21, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
California
Continuing storms lead to increase in SWP allocations, official says
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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
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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
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Earning to Live, Living to Serve.
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