A June 21, 2017 Memorandum issued by James Dalton, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Director of Civil Works, is designed to streamline a number of USACE processes, including:
With not too much extra waiting, the key documents were released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Instead of a long post, here are the key links to the documents you need:
Good day! As many of you know, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had scheduled a press conference for Tuesday, May 23 to go over the President’s proposed USACE budget for FY18. The rumor had been that the FY17 Work Plan would be released at the same time. This would have been a pretty monumental accomplishment for USACE and the Assistant Secretary of the Army, especially since Congress did not mandate a workplace until mid-June. But, there is a certain logic to releasing both on the same day as the FY18 Budget should flow from the policy decisions made in the FY17 Work Plan.
On Friday May 5 President Trump signed the budget deal that allows the Federal government to move from its one week continuing resolution to an adopted budget for the 2017 Fiscal Year. The budget deal includes a healthy set of appropriations for flood risk reduction and puts the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on a path toward moving more projects ahead this year. But the late passage of the budget (after 7 months of the 12 month fiscal year), will hamstring certain USACE actions.
Good day! Today we feature a series of little squibs of what has been happening in the past two weeks. All of the information below is confirmed, and all of it is notated with additional context. But we did want to share with you one item, which we cannot confirm, but which we are hearing about. Rumor has it that DWR has already designed significant parts of the spillway repair for Lake Oroville, has had meetings with four hand-selected contractors, and is currently getting ready to award a contract for the first phase of the repair dealing with road construction. These same rumors peg completion of the project to December 15, an aggressive schedule for any project let alone one this complicated.
Today’s post features a collaboration between guest author Julie Minerva and Scott and Andrea.
This morning the Trump Administration released its America First Budget (aka the Skinny Budget) for FY18. The text of the document contains much of the same rhetoric you heard in the President’s inaugural address as the budget proposes to focus on advancing the safety and security of the American people. Overall the budget proposes to increase spending for the Department of the Defense by $54B and it does this by eliminating or reducing most domestic discretionary budget items by an equivalent amount. For some agencies the America First Budget cuts straight into the bone. For the potential impact to flood protection programs, read on!
Things have appeared relatively quiet at Oroville Dam for the past couple of weeks, but a lot has been happening. DWR has been clearing debris from the diversion pool and has successfully started up releases through the Hyatt Powerplant, but the drawdown had some negative impacts downstream. Here is our latest update.
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Here’s our Saturday morning update on flood control issues in the Central Valley and beyond. Things have been quieter this week at Oroville Dam, but there’s plenty to report on from around the state.
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It feels like Monday morning’s installment should start with a rousing round of “rain, rain, go away, come again another day, Californians want to play!” With even more storms set to hit Northern and Southern California, the rain totals continue to rise and Mother Nature once again shows her awesome power. Today’s installment is focused on short summaries of events from around the state.
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Here is Saturday morning’s installment of our update on the Oroville Dam spillway incident and more news about the valley. In summary, Oroville’s Powerhouse is still not able to produce power; the emergency or auxiliary spillway remains stable; workers continue to add rock and concrete to address the erosion that led to the evacuations; the primary or service spillway is also stable, and is now evacuating 70,000 cfs from the reservoir; but new storms have started to roll in.
As always, if you find this blog helpful or interesting, please feel free to share it with others who may be interested. And if you would like to be updated when we post a new entry, please add your email on the right or below where it says “stay connected.”