Full reservoirs in California

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DannyMiller
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue May 01, 2012 5:33 pm

Full reservoirs in California

Post by DannyMiller »

Incredible amounts of rain have fallen in the past months in California. It is really a wonderful thing that's happened.
Right now 4 dams in California are completely full. Over 200 are 1/3 to 1/2 full. Shasta is over 10% full. It is estimated that Folsom Lake is over 20% full. I can see your confused at those percentages. I forgot to mention that I'm speaking about the percentages of sediment in the bottom of all of these reservoirs............not water............ Think about those percentages. Remember that massive Highway 50 slide a few years back. Where do you think all that went? Right over the dam gates? I'm gonna guess not. I've fished Folsom for over 35 years and places that at a full pool used to be 50' deep are now 10' at best. A lot of dams were built to prevent floods and many have done their job very well. I think that's great. Things have changed. Many negotiations after building canals to supply this precious commodity have been put in place to deliver it. I don't know the right answer but I at least can get this what I feel is a hidden/unknown problem out there to you. Go ahead and look up Rindge Dam, Matilija Dam, San Clemente Dam, Searsville Dam, for yourself. Their images are disturbing to see. If I had to guess Lake Mendocino will be next with these images as it really is about 60% full....... ...............of sediment.
Danny Miller
mark poulson
Posts: 10370
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 4:16 am
Location: Antioch, CA

Re: Full reservoirs in California

Post by mark poulson »

So there is no room to store water and catch debris, which is what they were designed to do.
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ACRon
Posts: 464
Joined: Mon May 23, 2005 8:46 pm

Re: Full reservoirs in California

Post by ACRon »

And of course we won't build any more dams. Have we learned nothing from sustained droughts?

If we maintained the ones we have and created new reservoirs we could store water instead of everybody freaking out about flooding and having to dump all winter long and/or flood our weirs.
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