[env-trinity] Just weeks after Oroville Dam crisis, damage found in another key California reservoir

Wed Mar 15 12:49:15 PDT 2017



    <image002.png> 
WATER & DROUGHT
   MARCH 14, 2017 4:35 PM 
Just weeks after Oroville Dam crisis, damage found in another key California reservoir
 <image003.jpg> 'Belly up to the bar and start spending money' on dam safety, Jerry Brown says 0:33   <image003.jpg> Jerry Brown says the state needs to spend some money to maintain its dams, roads and other public works during a Feb. 24, 2017 press conference at the Capitol. Video courtesy of the California Channel. Jim Miller jmiller at sacbee.com BY RYAN SABALOW AND DALE KASLER rsabalow at sacbee.com    California water officials, still struggling with fixes at Oroville Dam, will have to temporarily shut down the pumping station that delivers water to much of Southern California and Silicon Valley after discovering damage at another key state reservoir. The state Department of Water Resources confirmed Tuesday that operators discovered damage to the intake structure at the Clifton Court Forebay, a nearly two-mile-wide reservoir that stores water for the State Water Project pumping plant in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Tracy. Repairs will begin Wednesday. It’s not clear how long they will last. However, state officials said State Water Project customers won’t lose any water deliveries. “This is not an emergency of any kind,” said Doug Carlson, a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources. “The water is going to continue to flow to contractors.” Clifton Court is a crucial piece of the State Water Project’s plumbing. Water stored in the forebay is piped to the nearby pumping station, where it’s delivered to 19 million residents of Southern California, portions of Silicon Valley and about 750,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. Ted Page, board president of the Kern County Water Agency, one of the top customers of the SWP, said he was told the state will deliver water from the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County while repairs are being made at Clifton Court. Page said he’s been told the shipments from San Luis should be enough to meet customer demands while repairs are under way. “San Luis is full, completely full,” Page said. “And I think the period of time they’re talking about to do the repairs won’t be a big deal.” The state also could ask the federal government to help pipe water to Southern California through the state-run California Aqueduct by using the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s pumping facility. Though it’s less powerful than the state facility and has its own set of contractor demands, the federal pumping station is located near the state’s facilities at the south end of the Delta. The federal system can connect to the California Aqueduct through a connector canal. San Luis Reservoir, jointly owned by the SWP and the federal government’s Central Valley Project, is 99 percent full with a little more than 2 million acre-feet in storage. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons. Page said he was told the problem started because of heavy use of the intake structure at Clifton Court. State officials had been pushing unusually large volumes of water into the reservoir for lengthy periods because of high river flows in the Delta. “They were pumping at a higher rate than even what the pumps are rated for in my old blue book of the State Water Project,” said Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. The problem at Clifton Court comes barely a month after a near catastrophe struck Lake Oroville, the SWP’s primary reservoir. A giant fracture developed in Oroville Dam’s main spillway, prompting a temporary shutdown of the structure during a heavy storm. Five days later, water flowed over the dam’s emergency spillway for the first time, nearly causing the spillway to fail. Approximately 188,000 downstream residents were evacuated for two days. Dam operators averted disaster by ramping up outflows from the damaged main spillway, which lowered lake levels and arrested the flow of water over the faulty emergency spillway. The main spillway has been shut down for two weeks for temporary repairs but is expected to resume water releases Friday as spring snowmelt increases inflow into the reservoir. Temporary repairs to Oroville Dam have cost at least $100 million, Nancy Vogel, a spokeswoman for the California Natural Resources Agency, said Tuesday. It’s not clear yet what it will cost to repair the damage in Clifton Court’s intake structure, which consists of five 20-by-20-foot radial gates that take water from the Old River. Work started on the forebay in 1967 and was completed in 1969. Oroville Dam was completed in 1968. Ryan Sabalow: 916-321-1264, @ryansabalow 
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article138528578.html#1#storylink=cpy      
   <!--#yiv7782717371 _filtered #yiv7782717371 {font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv7782717371 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv7782717371 {font-family:Tahoma;panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} _filtered #yiv7782717371 {font-family:Georgia;panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;}#yiv7782717371 #yiv7782717371 p.yiv7782717371MsoNormal, #yiv7782717371 li.yiv7782717371MsoNormal, #yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";}#yiv7782717371 h1 {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";font-weight:bold;}#yiv7782717371 a:link, #yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv7782717371 a:visited, #yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv7782717371 p {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";}#yiv7782717371 p.yiv7782717371MsoAcetate, #yiv7782717371 li.yiv7782717371MsoAcetate, #yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371MsoAcetate {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma", "sans-serif";}#yiv7782717371 p.yiv7782717371MsoListParagraph, #yiv7782717371 li.yiv7782717371MsoListParagraph, #yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371MsoListParagraph {margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371BalloonTextChar {font-family:"Tahoma", "sans-serif";}#yiv7782717371 p.yiv7782717371gmail-m-8883043611960366651gmail-m4477976584760002828msolistparagraph, #yiv7782717371 li.yiv7782717371gmail-m-8883043611960366651gmail-m4477976584760002828msolistparagraph, #yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371gmail-m-8883043611960366651gmail-m4477976584760002828msolistparagraph {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371gmail-m-8883043611960366651gmail-abn {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371gmail-hoenzb {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371EmailStyle23 {font-family:"Calibri", "sans-serif";color:#1F497D;}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371EmailStyle24 {font-family:"Calibri", "sans-serif";color:#1F497D;}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371EmailStyle25 {font-family:"Calibri", "sans-serif";color:#1F497D;}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371Heading1Char {font-family:"Calibri", "sans-serif";font-weight:bold;}#yiv7782717371 p.yiv7782717371published-date, #yiv7782717371 li.yiv7782717371published-date, #yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371published-date {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371apple-converted-space {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371title-duration {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371caption-text {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371photographer {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371credits {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371ngbylinename {}#yiv7782717371 span.yiv7782717371ngbylineemail {}#yiv7782717371 .yiv7782717371MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv7782717371 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv7782717371 div.yiv7782717371WordSection1 {}-->
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170315/81e7b72c/attachment.html>