Tag Archives: Reservoirs

California Reservoirs are refilling after atmospheric rivers dumped water in the region

Luke 21:25 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves

Important Takeaways:

  • Water, water everywhere! Stunning photos show how historic California storms have refilled once-depleted reservoirs in drought-prone Golden State
  • California has experienced at least 11 atmospheric rivers this year, leading to a significant amount of rain and snowfall
  • The weather system has replenished the state’s once-depleted reservoirs after years of drought
  • 12 of California’s 17 major reservoirs are filled above their historical averages for the start of spring
  • The storms have created one of the biggest snowpacks on record in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The snowpack’s water content is 239 percent of its normal average and nearly triple in the southern Sierra, according to state data.

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Research shows areas affected by severe wildfire actually speeds up snow melt and ability to reclaim that water during dry season’s increasing drought

Luke 21:25-26 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Important Takeaways:

  • Wildfires are increasingly burning California’s snowy landscapes and colliding with winter droughts to shrink California’s snowpack
  • A new study shows that midwinter dry spells lead to dramatic losses of winter snowpack in burned areas
  • The early pandemic years overlapped with some of California’s worst wildfires on record, creating haunting, orange-tinted skies and wide swathes of burned landscape. Some of the impacts of these fires are well known, including drastic declines in air quality, and now a new study shows how these wildfires combined with midwinter drought conditions to accelerate snowmelt.
  • The enhanced snowmelt midwinter creates challenges for forecasting water availability from the natural snowpack reservoir. During the winter months, water managers need to leave room in reservoirs to prevent flooding; this means that earlier snowmelt may not be captured for later use in the dry season.
  • This study really highlights the importance of bringing fire back onto our landscape in the sense that we need fire — good fire is the answer to our wildfire problem,” Hatchett says. “Bringing a more natural regime of fire, through prescribed and cultural fire, back onto our landscape will help reduce the likelihood of future severe fire.”

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Wildfires now reaching higher altitudes that are usually colder and wetter: Find out what that means

Luke 21:11 “There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Wildfires are burning away the West’s snow
  • Researcher Stephanie Kampf’s team set out to determine whether more wildfires are burning at high elevations. The answer is unequivocally yes. And the consequences are dramatic: Snow in wildfire-burned areas is melting 18 to 24 days earlier than average.
  • The snowpack is critical… it contributes 20% to 90% of surface water used for agriculture, energy production, aquatic species habitat and more.
  • “What this study shows nicely is that fires are moving into places that we would think of as being more resistant because they’re cooler and wetter”
  • The study also found that snow in burned areas contains less water
  • Downstream water managers might need to prepare for an earlier melt-off that will contribute to reservoirs much earlier than needed.

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Going into summer, reservoir conditions are critically low

Leviticus 26:18-20 “And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

Important Takeaways:

  • It’s not even summer, and California’s two largest reservoirs are at ‘critically low’ levels
  • In the U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest report, officials described both reservoir conditions as “critically low” going into the summer.
  • Shasta Lake, which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea level when filled to the brim, is at less than half of where it usually should be in early May
  • Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in the State Water Project, a roughly 700-mile lifeline that pumps and ferries water all the way to Southern California, is currently at 55% of total capacity.
  • Along the Colorado River, projections show that the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are reaching a shortage so severe that larger water cuts are likely in 2023 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico — and at some point, California.

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Harvey storm-water releases were unlawful government takings: lawsuits

FILE PHOTO: Water bubbles up from a sewer cover in an affluent neighborhood in the aftermath of tropical storm Harvey on the west side of Houston, Texas, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Bryan Sims

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Owners of homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey are claiming billions of dollars in damages by federal and state water releases from storm-swollen reservoirs, using a legal tack pursued without success in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Several lawsuits filed in federal and state courts in Texas claim properties were taken for public use without compensation. The lawsuits name the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a state agency responsible for water releases. The potential damages could run as high as $3 billion, according to attorneys involved.

“No one expects your government is going to deliberately do something that is going to flood your home,” said Rhonda Pearce, 56. Her west Houston home was damaged by flooding from reservoir dam releases and she is considering legal action, she said.

“Homes were literally being swept away,” said Derek Potts, a Houston-based lawyer representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in Harris County court against the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) in a Texas court. His lawsuits are seeking class action status and could involve thousands of homes and businesses.

Water released from a lake into the San Jacinto River was lawful and area flooding “was neither caused by or made worse” by those releases, the SJRA said in a statement. Similar claims from an earlier storm were dismissed in court, it said.

The Army Corps of Engineers referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

Potts said there are more than 1,000 homes valued at between $750,000 and $1 million, that could be covered by the lawsuit against the SJRA, putting potential damages in that case in the billions of dollars.

Similar cases last decade that argued the government improperly took property when levees failed in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were unsuccessful, said Robert R. M. Verchick, an environmental law professor at Loyola College of Law in New Orleans.

“The Katrina plaintiffs tried to the do the same thing – and they lost,” Verchick said. “In some ways this is going to follow the same path.”

Christopher Johns, an attorney who has filed two lawsuits in U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., said his firm has been contacted by hundreds of other homeowners. A 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving flooding have opened the door to winning such claims, he said.

Megan Strickland, a plaintiff in one of the federal lawsuits, said while it is difficult to immediately quantify the damage to her home, many of her neighbors are in a similar situation.

“We don’t know if our neighborhood will be coming back again,” Strickland said.

(Reporting by Bryan Sims and David Gaffen; Writing by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)