“In my opinion, this was premeditated by Boswell,” Phil Hansen told supervisors. “They flooded El Rico first and they knew it wouldn’t hold back the water and that it would break on us. And they kept it all hush hush.” El Rico is one section of the 132,000 acres owned by Boswell that cover the old Tulare Lake bed.
Boswell representatives at the meeting said their focus has been to protect the town of Corcoran by keeping room in the old Tulare Lake bed for expected higher flows. That’s “ridiculous,” Hansen said.
If the massive lakebed had filled so much that it threatened Corcoran, then farmland to the southeast would have been open to absorb the overflow at that point, not first.
As of Thursday, March 23, the area west of El Rico in the lake bottom was still dry. When asked why that area didn’t have any flood water, Supervisor Doug Verboon, said it was his understanding that section was being “saved” for Kings River water. A Boswell Company representative had not returned phone calls.
The Hansens and others at that March 18 meeting and elsewhere, have said Boswell ignored a time-honored flood management process to fill the lowest part of the lake first. That allows rivers and streams to flow freely for longer, minimizing damage to upstream areas. Instead, critics have said, the company tried to hold water off the lowest part of the lake, opting to fill spaces around the edges first.
“We know we’re in a huge flood,” Phil Hansen said March 18. “And those areas would have flooded anyway. ” But filling the lake from the bottom up would have given people more time to protect their homes and move belongings and livestock out of harm’s way...more
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