Tule River flows through Porterville as more water released from Lake Success

TULARE COUNTY (KFSN) -- Prior to last winter, the city of Porterville solved some flood problems they had identified within city limits.

One project was at Zalud Park, where a new pipeline was installed to be able to pump the water out when there's too much.

"Any problem areas that we have we try and attack them with the funds available," said Porterville Public Works Director Michael Reed.

Last week, a new problem popped up, when high and fast water flows in the Tule River caused some erosion to the riverbanks. It temporarily shut down the Jaye Street Bridge, which is currently under construction, so crews could put in riprap to secure both sides of the river.

Reed says they haven't had any problems since, but they're ready for any additional increase to the amount of water released from Lake Success.

"That contractor will do the same process," he said. "(They) will close down the bridge temporarily and deposit the rip rap off each side of the bridge to make sure that the erosion doesn't take place."

US Army Corps of Engineers Operations Area Manager Calvin Foster says Lake Success is one of two Sacramento District reservoirs releasing water (the other is Lake Kaweah), to make space in case of a flood event.

Currently, the lake has about 41,000 acre-feet of water, and they're releasing 1,200 cubic-feet of water per second. He thinks that will stay about the same, and hopes for colder storms so the snowpack can be strong, and then melt in the springtime.

"The good thing is I think is that this storm is cold and going to be more snow than rain hopefully at least in the higher elevations," Foster said. "So we should not see tremendous inflows from this storm, and hopefully we'll be able to manage it."

It's a balancing act, but Foster says they won't make releases that could cause flooding issues downstream. After all, the dam was designed as a flood control project when it was built 55 years ago.