The Massive Clearcutting Above Lake Oroville Can’t Help
By Don Pelton
After sending a few friends a link to a good SacBee article today about the stressed reservoirs in the Feather River watershed above Lake Oroville, one of my friends called my attention to the extensive clearcutting in lands surrounding some of Lake Oroville’s feeder streams up to the southeast of Lake Oroville, all visible in Google Earth (see snapshot below).
Here’s the very informative SacBee article:
“Reservoirs feeding Lake Oroville are filled to brim as more rain rolls in”
And here’s a snapshot I took a few minutes ago, using Google Earth, showing some of these same areas of the watershed to the east of Lake Oroville, including feeder streams into the Lake.
Clearcutting prevents sequestration of the rainwater and accelerates the runoff, carrying precious soil with it. All of which adds to the already considerable burden on Lake Oroville.
In this snapshot, the light-colored speckled patches upstream from Lake Oroville (clearcut areas) are conspicuous: