Posted on 09/25/2015 1:27:37 PM PDT by Red Badger
FOLSOM LAKE (CBS13) — A Northern California reservoir ran dry overnight, killing thousands of fish and leaving residents looking for answers.
While a $3.5 million drought safety net at Folsom Lake finishes, a lake in another part of the state is left high and dry.
Thousands of fish lay dead in what used to be Mountain Meadows reservoir also known as Walker Lake, a popular fishing hole just west of Susanville.
“Everywhere that you see that’s wet, there was water,” said resident Eddie Bauer.
RELATED: California Drought Has More Insects Swarming Toward Homes
Residents say people were fishing on the lake last Saturday, but it drained like a bathtub overnight. Bauer has lived near this lake his entire life. This is the first time he’s ever seen it run dry. He and other residents want answers.
Pacific Gas & Electric Company owns the rights to the water and uses it for hydroelectric power.
It’s the situation we worked hard to avoid but the reality is we’re in a very serious drought, there’s also concerns for the fish downstream,” said spokesman Paul Moreno.
Bauer says there should’ve been at least two weeks of water left and that would’ve given PG&E enough time to relocate the fish.
“This makes me feel like they didn’t want to do a fish rescue and that it was easier to open that sucker up Saturday night,” Bauer said.
PG&E officials say nobody opened the dam up and the water simply ran out.
No matter who’s to blame, residents here worry, this could happen in other areas of the state.
“The reservoirs are all continuing to be far below normal,” said Doug Carlson with the Department of Water Resources.
He says there’s no question water concerns are still a serious issue across the state.
“We are reliant upon rainfall to fill those lakes of course and until we get more rain we’re not likely to see any appreciable increase in the reservoir levels,” he said.
At Folsom Lake, workers are finishing work on floating barges that would pump water to the city of Folsom and the prison if the lake gets too low for the water to flow through an intake valve. An insurance policy that may be put into use soon.
California has some damn big problems, for sure.
Who cares, CA has turned it’s back on our country, the whole state could sink in to the ocean and I could care less.
My head is swirling with questions.
Someone have something against California?
May be a preview of what is coming to America. We have been given great wealth and power and have misused that power and been pretty bad in light of Someone’s point of view and Law.
Not quite. Please see My posts #51 and #55 for why.
Cheers. :)
Bet the local maraweenie fields are nice and green.
No, just an outlet valve being cleared of debris is all. See postings #51 and #55 for more details.
Cheers.
Folsom Lake and Mountain Meadows(Walker Lake) are about 250 miles apart.
Folsom Lake and Mountain Meadows(Walker Lake) are about 250 miles apart.
Swing and a miss.
"Thousands of fish lay dead in what used to be Mountain Meadows reservoir also known as Walker Lake..."
Or perhaps you are referring to some other posting...?
Then on Sept. 13, PG&E workers, performing routine maintenance, cleared debris from an outlet valve at the reservoir and left the valve open while waiting for permission to close it, according to Myers.
I misread. Thanks for pointing out my error.
I heard obama had to cancel his global warming photo-op at the reservoir upon hearing this news about the valve.
True. Which is why I posted both articles from separate counties stating what had happened according to the witnesses on site.
They should have thought of the problems before they engaged upon their machinations on the outlet pipe and taken steps to ensure that no problems would arise. I will give them the benefit of a doubt and guess that they were under orders to not do anything without the direct instructions from someone a bit higher up the food chain -and just as an aside, most of the individuals I know working on various projects in this area are not stupid. Just suffering with having to abide by arcane rules which do not necessarily take into account any “man-on-the-ground” advice.
Red Tape indeed, it would appear.
No worries, mate. I never assume that anyone else knows better from a distance what goes on in this general location than I do, and by the same token I do not know as much as the locals do about things hereabout, so a small error in location is not a huge lot to be unduly worried about. Thanks for being so perceptive, by the way. It served to help others more finely look at where the problem lay and so more readily understand what exactly was occurring in the general area.
Wow, keenly worded response. Are you a county or city member- in Lassen, Plumas or Modoc?
*laugh* No. I am simply someone who lives in the general area and is somewhat familiar with the events occurring as they come about and sometimes what the outcomes turn out to be.
Then again, I am also the one who pointed out in this forum not too long ago that there was a former Gold Mine town that was up for sale for not too much that would provide an excellent destination for whoever might be the most inclined to attempt to set up a very secure location for when TSHTF in the future.
Just twigged on this thread once I read about the “Mountain Meadows” difficulty since it was on the local rag just recently.
Okay. Thanks.
Not everyone in California is of the Fruits-and-Nuts genre, and wish that things could be otherwise but what with the Gerrymandering of districts and the overwhelming influence of whackjob bloody loons being continually voted into office at every opportunity more and more of us are looking at The State Of Jefferson as a quite attractive alternative.
After all, it’s not like the liberal loons in SanFran and other places care about what we in the non-city locations have as our core values.
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