Pirate's Cove

It’s one thing for your average climate weenies to yammer on about this, another thing entirely when the so-called “Paper of Record” does it

What California’s Dam Crisis Says About the Changing Climate

My guess would be that weather has always happened, and the climate has always changed. Silly me

After five years of record-setting drought, much of California is being pummeled by an extremely wet winter. The disaster unfolding at Oroville, where precipitation is more than double the average, is the latest reminder that the United States needs a climate-smart upgrade of our water management systems.

So, the permanent drought talking point was the predictive equivalent of horsesh*t?

In the West, much of our water infrastructure is old. Oroville Dam, north of Sacramento, was completed in 1968, nearly a half a century ago. Other major components of our water system are generations older, and maintenance has not been a priority. The damage to Oroville Dam, where the primary spillway developed a giant gash and the emergency spillway threatened to erode, illustrates the hazard of relying on aging infrastructure to protect us from extreme weather.

But age and upkeep are not the only problems. Our water system was designed and built in an old climate, one in which extremely warm years were less common and snowpack was more reliable. Here in the West, we use the same dams and reservoirs for both water storage and flood control, so during the wet season, reservoir managers continuously balance the dual pressures of storing as much water as possible for the dry summer and releasing sufficient water to create room for the next storm.

This was a 3 captain, and I could even read beyond that last paragraph, as my eyes hurt so much from rolling them.