Boats ordered out of Folsom Lake
Low water level predicted by end of month
Boat owners have been ordered to get their crafts out of Folsom Lake Marina at Brown's Ravine by Aug. 25 due to Folsom Lake's rapidly dropping water levels. The order is coming from the marina's owners, on advice from the the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, because the lake's level is expected to be below 412 feet by the deadline. "We're telling them it's going to happen," said Lynette Wirth, spokesperson for the bureau. "The marina owner makes the determination (to send notices to boat owners)." The marina is located off of Green Valley Road near El Dorado Hills. What started out as record high water levels at the end of June have since vanished. The lake dropped almost a foot per day during July, according to the bureau's Web site. The lake is currently at an elevation of 426 feet. The measurement is "above sea level," not the depth of the lake. The lake crests at 480 feet and bottoms out at 205 feet, according to the bureau. Boats were pulled from Folsom Lake the first week of July in 2008 due to low water levels and on Aug. 1 in 2007. "We've had it much better than last year," Wirth said. "I have been told there are other places to put a boat in (at Folsom Lake)." When the lake reaches an elevation of 412 feet, measured against the dam, the water is too low for boats to remain docked at the marina, she said. "That's when they will start having problems with their boats," Wirth said. According to an official statement released by the bureau on Wednesday afternoon, "Releases to the American River are being made to meet downstream water quality requirements. Reservoir operations are lowering the lake level by about 0.75 foot per day. In 2009, California is experiencing the third consecutive dry or critically dry water year causing Governor Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency for drought. "While Folsom Reservoir filled this past spring, downstream demands and an overtaxed water system have caused Reclamation to make releases to make up for low storage in other parts of the Central Valley Project. The lake is also going down because of the demands of the communities in the greater Sacramento area. "Storage at Folsom Reservoir is currently about 573,000 acre-feet, the forecast shows that the reservoir will reach elevation 412 around Aug. 25, 2009, and will continue to be lowered throughout the rest of the summer."
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If the Bureau of Wrecklaimation insist on keeping Folsom empty, why did we all pay for the dam in the first place? If we aren't going to store any water just demolish it and let the river do naturally what the Bureau and fish and game can't manage. When it rains too much, they drain it for flood control. When it's too dry, they drain it for the fish. Just look at the results. No salmon and no water. Your government in action.
I propose that in any "below average" rainfall year, any time the level of the lake goes below 75%, the operators spend one day in jail for every day they release more water than is comming in. If the dam wasn't there, the delta would only get the amount of water that the river could produce. Why, just because there is a dam there do the flows need to be artifically increased above natural levels in the summer?
Interesting. For the last few years Lake Mead (Colorado River/Las Vegas, NV) has been dropping more than usual. The "water district" has been secretly buying up land in the northern Nevada valleys so they can pipe water down to Las Vegas. This is such a repeat of the "Owens Valley" tragedy it's almost criminal. It is a constant harangue by the water authorities that they MUST have that extra water. Sounds like a critical situation, right?
Not so fast. Recently, it has come to light that Lake Powell...a lake formed by the damming of Glen Canyon (less than 200 miles up river from Lake Mead) is full. Full up river and emptying out down river? Sounds like a strategy to create a bit of a local crisis to me. In this case milions of acre-feet of water rights are at stake. Would a water control authority do that??? History says yes, yes, and yes!
The Las Vegas Valley Water District boss, Pat Mulroy, would deny it. Of, course, it's the same outfit that just spent $300,000,000 of ratepayers money to build a "preserve" and theme park that they charge ridiculous entry fees for visitors to walk around and look at the same desert that surrounds the Las Vegas Valley. Yes, this is your government(s) at work.
Is the issue with Folsom Lake the same mentality? It would seem like it.
Odd how "Mulroy" is similar to "Mulholland". Who is the SMUD Chief??? Remember "ChinaTown"??? Control of the water is control of our very lives!
It's also funny how the state is in a horrible drought, except for the town of Rocklin. Water-metering is being proposed, yet the Rocklin city council wants to keep building and luring in developers from around the globe. They say if this drought continues, we won't have enough water for the residents. So how do we justify approving more developments and sprawl if this is the case? Why doesn't the Rocklin council just tell the environmentlists how we have plenty of water so this debate can be over with?
It's also funny how the state is in a horrible drought, except for the town of Rocklin. Water-metering is being proposed, yet the Rocklin city council wants to keep building and luring in developers from around the globe. They say if this drought continues, we won't have enough water for the residents. So how do we justify approving more developments and sprawl if this is the case? Why doesn't the Rocklin council just tell the environmentlists how we have plenty of water so this debate can be over with?
Sorry fuhrsg, the reason they have to release more water to keep the Salmon alive is that the salmon used to spawn up in the mountains where it is much cooler. The flows were way less, but the water didnt sit in resevoirs heating up. So building the dam made all the salmon stop in Natomas and trying to keep the water temp low enough to not kill the eggs takes way more water flow than comes out of the mountains. If they could release water from the bottom of the dam they wouldnt have to release as much. POOR PLANNING by our government has become a tax payers nightmare.
RD7, The salmon spawned and headed back to sea long before August. What mountain stream are you talking about, the American River in the early 1900's? The ravines and creeks in our area were primarily filled by run-off from local fruit ranches, each year when they stopped irrigating many streams dried up. There are two salmon runs a year, the fall run salmon never went very far up any creek, in the spring the run would take them up as far as Ophir in the Auburn Ravine,as well as Doty and Dutch ravines at Gold Hill Road, this I witnessed in the 1960's. The diversion dam at Gold Hill didn't stop them at that time.
The salmon were common in the Folsom area, when I was a kid, my Dad would tell about the Folsom salmon as they ended up where you could see hundreds of them below where the dam is today at the old power house that is a historical landmark.
Letting the water out without it being used for irrigation, recreation and power generation is ridiculous. Match what is coming in to the outflow.