They are already opening the dams and letting water out. Lake Shasta as well as other dams throughout the state are still well below limit and they are releasing water already. They claim it is to prevent another Oroville dam failure incident from happening. They haven't built a single dam in over 50 years and most of the ones in place were finished in the 70s. They'll claim another drought this year regardless of how much precipitation California gets.
All fish and environmental issues aside, I believe it has more to do with the fact California water is controlled by private interest. Specifically a man named Stewart Resnick. He has California held hostage. If the state doesn't pay him, he waters his almonds and citrus orchards and cuts the flow to the everyone else. As an added bonus, cities and counties get fined if they don't pay him to put water into the rivers and streams for the fish.
I heard the claim for draining them was for "earthquake retrofitting and structural repairs." In 2020 though, many farmers had to close the doors on their farms and orchards because there wasn't enough water to grow anything. Interestingly enough, many of those farmers had tracts of land along the area the state is proposing building a high speed train line from Seattle to Los Angeles, which also just happened to be the same year there were historically massive fires. Some of the fires were linked to arson as well as linked to PG&E negligence. Gavin Newsom's wife is a part of PG&E's board membership.
They are already opening the dams and letting water out. Lake Shasta as well as other dams throughout the state are still well below limit and they are releasing water already. They claim it is to prevent another Oroville dam failure incident from happening. They haven't built a single dam in over 50 years and most of the ones in place were finished in the 70s. They'll claim another drought this year regardless of how much precipitation California gets.
All fish and environmental issues aside, I believe it has more to do with the fact California water is controlled by private interest. Specifically a man named Stewart Resnick. He has California held hostage. If the state doesn't pay him, he waters his almonds and citrus orchards and cuts the flow to the everyone else. As an added bonus, cities and counties get fined if they don't pay him to put water into the rivers and streams for the fish.
I heard the claim for draining them was for "earthquake retrofitting and structural repairs." In 2020 though, many farmers had to close the doors on their farms and orchards because there wasn't enough water to grow anything. Interestingly enough, many of those farmers had tracts of land along the area the state is proposing building a high speed train line from Seattle to Los Angeles, which also just happened to be the same year there were historically massive fires. Some of the fires were linked to arson as well as linked to PG&E negligence. Gavin Newsom's wife is a part of PG&E's board membership.