SACRAMENTO - (NT) - Construction of a temporary emergency drought barrier at West False River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is nearing completion about two weeks sooner than anticipated, according to the Department of Water Resources (DWR).

The barrier now spans the approximately 750-foot-wide river between Jersey and Bradford islands and blocks salt water that tidal action attempts to push eastward from San Francisco Bay into Franks Tract.

About 150,000 tons of rocks have been dropped from barges with hinged bottoms or lifted from barges and dropped by crane into the river’s channel to create the barrier.

Typically when saltwater threatens to encroach deeper into the Delta, water project operators repel it either by slowing the pumping of water from the Delta or increasing the amount of water flowing into the Delta from upstream reservoirs.

In this fourth year of drought, Delta pumping by the state and federal water projects is already negligible, and it takes three to five days for fresh water released from Lake Oroville or Shasta Lake to reach the Delta.

Storage in all of California’s major reservoirs currently is far below historical averages for late May. Shasta Lake, the state’s largest, is at 62 percent of that average, Lake Oroville is at 53 percent and New Melones now holds 30 percent of its late May average.

Story Date: June 3, 2015