California Lake Vanishes Overnight
Dried up Walker Lake, (CBS 13 Sacramento)
Northern California Reservoir Vanishes Overnight
The $3.5 million project to save Folsom Lake sits on the horizon while a Northern California reservoir runs dry overnight, killing thousands of fish and leaving residents baffled.
Folsom lake comparison from 2011 – 2014, (Keep California Farming)
Formally known as Mountain Meadows reservoir, or Walker Lake, the reservoir was a popular fishing hole just west of Susanville. The rights to the site are currently owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Company who use the reservoir for hydroelectric power. PG&E claims to be just as surprised as everyone else.
“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,” noted PG&E spokesman, Paul Moreno.
Dead fish from Walker Lake, (CBS 13 Sacramento)
Eddie Bauer, a local resident, said there should’ve been at least 2 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.“
Extreme claims, to say the least, which can’t be substantiated.
In response, PG&E officials said nobody opened the dam up and that the water simply ran out.
“The reservoirs are all continuing to be far below normal,” said Doug Carlson with the Department of Water Resources, “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.”
What are your thoughts? Does California have a fighting chance to survive the drought? Is this a sign of what’s to come for the rest of the US with changing weather patterns? Is this just the ‘natural process’ of our ‘little blue dot’ in space?
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I’m sure there might be a simple opening of the dam involved here, but I worked last month on a project that discussed the rapid drying out and draining of wetlands in the Arctic areas, as permafrost melts and the subsurface changes. I wonder if other geology will show similar effects? The rate of drying/disappearance was dramatic.
The open dam theory is what locals are saying, which PG&E says it not the case. Interesting times indeed.
There is no way that much water could drain out overnight without intention. We as people must question how this happened, and not accept whatever an official tells us. Draining to avoid an expensive fish relocation makes more sense logically than oops that sucker just dried up overnight we don’t know what happened. I call bullshit.
I wouldn’t blame you. I like to hope that people aren’t that slimy. 😛