Wednesday June 28, 2023
Los Angeles Times —
After months of concern that Sierra Nevada snowmelt would send torrents of water into an already flooded Tulare Lake and inundate more communities and infrastructure, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has announced that the waters of the resurgent lake have finally begun to recede.
“We’ve turned a corner,” said Alex Stack, a Newsom spokesman.
In a prepared statement released Wednesday, the governor’s office said that data and inundation maps collected and prepared by state officials show that earlier estimates of potential flooding have not been met. Instead, the lake — now roughly the size of Lake Tahoe — is shrinking.
The statement credited “months of government efforts to combat flooding” and “favorable weather conditions that have slowed snowmelt,” and claimed that 66,692 acre-feet of water — or 21.7 billion gallons — have been diverted from the lakebed as a result of “early and aggressive action” by officials.