“We prayed for rain and did a good job of it” Doug Verboon.
-March 23,2023-
After a week of both rising water and concerns that the town of Corcoran could soon be under water – coordinated actions led by Kings County has reduced at least some of the impending doom and gloom.So says Supervisor Doug Verboon who with his fellow supervisors ordered a levee maintained by the Boswell company- into Basin 749- be cut, relieving some pressure on the network of protective control embankments around the community.
“On Friday the Tule River broke through and filled up what had been a walled-off basin helping to reduce the emergency” Verboon says. After a tense stand-off in the Board of Supervisors chambers over the weekend “the County and the Boswell company are now cooperating even though they would rather we were not involved” suggested Verboon.
”We both figure it’s better than us fighting in public.”
On March 16 the supervisors ordered:
1 Public Works is instructed to reestablish cuts between Excelsior and Flint on the 2000-3000 block designed to relieve flood flows.
2. Corcoran Irrigation District will be allowed to repair its breaches.
3. There will be no damming of the Highline Canal at this time.
4. In the event any person or entity considers damming the Highline Canal or modifying any flood plan path, they will be required to notify Kings County dispatch one hour prior to commencing work.
Press accounts
Indeed the public got a rare glimpse of the battle over how to direct flooding coming from an overflowing Tule River in press accounts in the past week including an LA Times article that detailed how representatives of the Deer Creek Flood Control District tried to reach an unnamed large property owner wanting to ask them to allow flooding of their orchard so homes could be saved.
Instead the company placed a large piece of equipment blocking a road that impeded flood control efforts, says the paper. The low income towns of Allensworth and Alpaugh have been flooded and roads made impassable, the flood control district alleged, putting the blame on the company.The Times was unable to get a comment from the company.
On March 18 the blog San JoaquinWater.Org detailed a middle of the night raid by someone who cut a portion of the bank of Deer Creek 3 miles northeast of Allensworth wanting to move water in a different direction but toward Allensworth in Tulare County.
Those Tulare County towns were not the only community affected by water being held back and not allowed to move to the lakebed. Tulare has been impacted as well and lobbied the Kings Board of Supervisors to move more Tule River water by opening more channels.
In the end Doug Verboon says no-one is to blame despite all the arm wrestling over what land is flooded. “There is just to much water,”
Today all rivers and creeks in the southern Sierra are flowing out of the foothills and heading as fast as they can for old Tulare Lake simply because water moves downhill.
One saving grace may be this week’s 12th Atmospheric River storm may not be as huge as feared, says Verboon. Plus it looks like the region will catch a break with no rain for perhaps a week – a chance for blue sky and a period of drying off.
A look at flows at press time demonstrate this week’s storm was not as warm, strong or impactful as the two previous storms that sent a torrent of water into reservoirs and uncontrolled creeks below and west to Kings County.
Pictured: inflows into Terminus Dam from the Kaweah River. This week’s storm was tame
Some good news
The good news is as of Wednesday March 22 at 6 PM inflow into both lakes are tame.On the Kaweah the inflow from the March 21 storm is about 5000 cfs compared to 42,000cfs March 11 and 30,000cfs on March 15. Both those warm and big storms hammered Springville and Three Rivers and started all this flooding.
Pictured: temperature chart at 6500-feet in Giant Forest today and during the last 2 destructive storms when
temps reached 44 degrees.This weeks storm was cold and did not met snow.
Now the lower incoming flows will allow the Corp of Engineers to slowly drain both lakes to give them room for that big melt in a month or so.
As for the Kings, this week Pine Flat and tributaries floodwater is being steered both to the north impacting the town of San Joaquin and heading to the ocean as wells flowing south to the lakebed. The latest flow releases will put the Clark’s Fork-South Fork system flow at 1,500 c.f.s. by Thursday evening with the North Fork-James Bypass to the San Joaquin River at its 4,750 c.f.s. capacity says spokesperson Randy McFarland.
Flows into the lake will likely mean the return of Tulare Lake – once the largest body of water west of the Mississippi.The lake re-appeared from a dry basin in drought years to a real lake in 1969 and 1983.
One theory is that today water heading west does not flow where it has in the past.That is the point of view of Doug Verboon’s cousin Jim Verboon who argues ” this time it’s different” He claims the big ag interests like Boswell have cordoned off basins and blocked channels where water had flowed before.
Jim Verboon fears for Corcoran, arguing that “there is a 95% chance” Corcoran will be flooded.
Jim Verboon suspects one factor affecting flood patterns is the scale of subsidence in the Corcoran area where studies have shown land sinking from 12 to 24 feet One study says there is a “Corcoran bowl” of sunken landscape in a wide circle around Corcoran and east toward Highway 99. The California High Speed Rail has engineered for the drop.It happens that the Amtrak station in Corcoran was closed this week due to fears of flooding.
The impact of subsidence on flood patterns may be complicated but lower grounds obviously attract water seeking the lowest point -making them more vulnerable to flooding.
View on the return of Tulare Lake
While some fear the return of Tulare Lake, others see a benefit.
Dairyman Joaquin Contente says he thinks Tulare Lake will be big this year and it’s a good thing. He figures it keeps more populated and intensely developed areas of basin less prone to flooding.Plus it could provide a source of stored water when it turns dry again.The flood water as a nuisance today but would turn to a valuable commodity.
Fresno Bee writer Marek Warszawski argues the return of Tulare Lake is not good news since the livelihoods of those who work in the lakebed will suffer. The other side of the coin is that if water flows downhill, the upstream towns and farms are spared where there is a far bigger economy.
Figure the lake will indeed come back. Just one the rivers that feeds Tulare Lake -the Kings River now has an estimate of April-July runoff that should be over 2.6 million acre feet compared to 400,000af the year before.