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Early Storms Raise Some Marin County Reservoir Levels To Near Capacity

BOLINAS (KPIX 5) – The latest round of rain has Marin County looking at a couple of reservoirs that are nearly full in just the second week of November.

"We have two small reservoirs, which are labeled Wood Rat Number One and Number Two," explained Jack Seidman with the Bolinas Community Public Utility District. "Number one is already full, and number two is just about full already."

The town of Bolinas, where residents were once on the precipice of severe rationing measures, is now basking in the runoff of a second storm, after the first primed the ground for more rain.

"The second round of rain, and we just got 2 inches overnight," Seidman said Tuesday. "It's pretty much just all pouring off the service into the reservoir."

So in Bolinas, fortunes have reversed, in a hurry.

"Yeah, we feel really good about where we are," Seidman says. "This is, of course, the most rain we've seen early in the season in a long, long time."

Alpine Lake Reservoir Marin County
Alpine Lake reservoir in Marin County as of November 9, 2021. (CBS)

As for Marin at large, many have been interested in getting to Alpine Lake to see just what it looks like at the dam, but no one can get out there, at least not by car, because of a slide on Fairfax-Bolinas Road.

One can, however, get there on foot, and anyone who makes the trip will find a remarkable sight. Alpine Lake, as of Monday night, was 97% full.

As for the creeks and streams feeding the lake, Cataract Trail is one raging set of falls after another.

For anyone planning on going, be prepared to get wet. The trail itself is flooded in many areas at the moment. All of the rain is producing quite a spectacle across the Marin watershed, and it's adding up to reservoirs that are just about full.

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