Reservoir Fillage

I was hunting with a guy from DWR this last weekend, and they are pumping more right now than they have in six years to handle the runoff. Plus, the lakes are still discharging at a good clip. I would think, unless a great deal more precip is forecast for the year, that they would want to hold back water to regain lake levels. Blows my mind.

There is a "flood pool" that must be maintained until a date set for each res. This means that generally, the reservoirs must bee kept at or below a certain level until sometime in February.

Most of these dams were built with "flood protection" as the number one priority, water supply is a close second, but secondary none the less.


basically, very few if any large reservoirs will recover in a single season and the over allocation of water supply helps ensure that it will take longer than makes sense...

I only partially buy this.  This explains why they would never be completely full at this point in the year, however most reservoirs are still below the average for this time of year.

-Allen

All I can say i that every storm is modeled, storms on the horizon are modeled, and statistical analysis done to determine how much water to hold or release based on rules and regulations laid out in reservoir operations documents.  From the first storm until May, the guys/gals at BOR and DWR work very long days trying to get it right.

So we got nothing to worry about, right?  Come June all the reservoirs will be filled, according to those models.  Wanna bet?   

-Allen

lol, you misunderstand. 
The chance of full reservoirs is very very slim this year, the rules governing storage have no objectives related to filling the reservoirs, rather the objectives are meeting flood control and contracted amounts based on meteorological measurements and predictions.  In fact, if the snow pack were large enough and melted slow enough, the reservoirs would rarely exceed 3/4 full and water contracts would be met to 90% or better.
Think of the reservoirs less like banks and more like lines of credit.  Put water in, take water out, but try not to take out more than is put in.  of course, in a drought the credit taken exceeds credit given.  When the reservoirs do manage to fill up, thats just luck, but the general person thinks that they are supposed to be full, and water users prey on that misconception...

I understood.  I didn't mean the literal "filled to the brim".  But your point is well taken.

-Allen

Lake Shasta has a capacity of 4,552,000 acre feet.

Stormageddon brought Shasta from 1,170,769 AF up to 1,400,864 AF = 230095 AF gain.

~13 1/2 additional similar storms to go from post-stormageddon levels to capacity.  In other words, unless we hit several biblical floods, we are eff-a-rood 

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=SHA

What you did not take into consideration is the inflow / outflow ratio, Shasta has been coming up 1 to 2 ft. / day between rain storms, it will probably not fill up but at least it's a good start. Redding just hit 10" of rain for Dec. ( higher at Shasta ) , but now it looks like we're heading for a dry spell. 

Nice shot of water we're getting, but I can't help but wonder what's going on with the salmon redds in the river.  Anyone have any idea?

-Allen

Good question, here is another one, if we had those two new reservoirs/dams mentioned in the water proposition that passed they would be filling those up right now also. How many years and billions is that going to be?

Weren't you in the yes camp ? What's the plan?

I voted yes, I thought it was a good idea for times just like this when we could capture more water but still the unknown is how many years/billions before we can take advantage of rains like this?

My guess is that the EIR's will take so long to do we will never see this happen. All monies for that project will end up on another water project closer to Sacramento.

Some shots of Lake Hennessey from earlier this afternoon. The creeks are still running coming into the lake but have slowed to a fraction of what they were a week or so ago. Lake looks to be within three feet of full but is still very stained with maybe a foot of visibility.

Anybody had a look at Berryessa recently?
Bill