Folsom Dumping Water?

[LookoutRanch]

While at work last night I noticed gates on Lake Natomas where dumping quite a bit more water than I’ve seen in a while. Check the flows and Folsom Lake level has dropped when every lake in the region is rising. The flows more than doubled overnight on the American. Hopefully these water clowns aren’t getting ahead of themselves like they have in the past several years and dump more than what gets the lake up to 60% before the wet it caps out. Anyone have any insight? I’ve lived here my whole life and there never seems to make any sense on the decisions of Folsom lake water.

[Whoopbass]

They said they were making room for storms later in the season. It's sitting at 60% right now and they claim average storage is around 40%. They may dump another 200,000 acre feet of water before they shut the gates.

[LookoutRanch]

They said they were making room for storms later in the season. It's sitting at 60% right now and they claim average storage is around 40%. They may dump another 200,000 acre feet of water before they shut the gates.

After missing the mark every year you would think they would allow it to approach 75% before starting to dump some off. They have always counted the chickens before they hatched and with the improvements to Folsom to allow more water to be dumped safely, you would think they would test some new theories since the tax payers paid hundreds of millions for those improvements.

[Pat]

Folsom is at a higher capacity than most of the major reservoirs right now. Every lake has a flood reserve level, referred to as TOC that is calculated based on available capacity for inflowing water to protect down stream areas against flooding. It varies based on time of year and can also be adjusted to account for snow pack in the water shed above. If you look at the chart here: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryDaily?s=FOL You will see that Folsom is currently above TOC. So they are releasing water to get the lake down to a safe margin for potential inflow.

Remember in 1997 we had a big early snowpack like we have this year. It was followed by a big warm storm, aka "Pineapple Express" that melted a lot of the snow pack and it flowed down the rivers and overwhelmed the reservoirs and resulted in catastrophic flooding. The water managers use historic information and anticipated weather to try to achieve a balance. If all goes well this year we can hope that Folsom will fill up, but the planners don't want that to happen until late spring.

[dfishing1]

If you remember, I posted on this before. The El Dorado Irrigation district has a LARGE scale project up the south fork that they have been hoping to hold the water down to complete. (Dont try and deny it El Dorado). The Bureau has been in cahoots with them and the once in a 200 year flood spillway that was put in has done NOTHING to keep water in Folsom. We have a man made drought up at Folsom. The City of Folsom is expanding south of Hwy 50 and they have done nothing to find other water sources. The San Juan Water District also takes their share of water too. So needless to say, none of this should surprise any of us. I am disappointed but it is the way it is and will be. You would think for being the #2 most used State park in the entire system that they would keep water for recreation. But we will see what they do with 202% of average water content, keep it or let it go?

[mark poulson]

Folsom is at a higher capacity than most of the major reservoirs right now. Every lake has a flood reserve level, referred to as TOC that is calculated based on available capacity for inflowing water to protect down stream areas against flooding. It varies based on time of year and can also be adjusted to account for snow pack in the water shed above. If you look at the chart here:
You will see that Folsom is currently above TOC. So they are releasing water to get the lake down to a safe margin for potential inflow.

Remember in 1997 we had a big early snowpack like we have this year. It was followed by a big warm storm, aka "Pineapple Express" that melted a lot of the snow pack and it flowed down the rivers and overwhelmed the reservoirs and resulted in catastrophic flooding. The water managers use historic information and anticipated weather to try to achieve a balance. If all goes well this year we can hope that Folsom will fill up, but the planners don't want that to happen until late spring.

Thank you for this post.
I see that level is above the TOC storage level. I hope they stop dumping when it gets down that level.
Fingers crossed!

[Whoopbass]

That post is nonsense and you know it Mark. We can't go by data from 25 years ago. We are currently dealing with "manmade climate change". The state is going to dry up and burn away long before it ever floods again (that is if we don't all die from covid first).

[LookoutRanch]

That post is nonsense and you know it Mark. We can't go by data from 25 years ago. We are currently dealing with "manmade climate change". The state is going to dry up and burn away long before it ever floods again (that is if we don't all die from covid first).

I’m almost wishing I said nothing…….just trying to
find logic in dumping a lake that has almost every year has been drained to 20-30% yearly. Dumping at 60% makes no sense considering the infrastructure that was put in place at the expense of the tax payers for Folsom to hold more supply and be able to safely release water in such emergency. Maybe it’s the new climate change, over population, over building in deserts logic I missed.

[Whoopbass]

Everything that Pat wrote is the reason why they release water this time of year in lakes. Is this 25 year old reasoning when infrastructure and meteorology is better now than it was back then? Government is slow to change. I gave Mark a jab because he believes a democratic government does no wrong. They blame the wildfires on "climate change". So if were getting less water now because of it maybe they need to reconsider dumping water to make space for a weather event that happens roughly every 20-30 years. Every 4-5 years our lakes get to a dangerous low level but we have been lucky enough to get bailed out by Mother Nature each time. One of these times it isn't going to happen.