Glenn County — State and local officials have been quietly looking into the emergence of numerous sinkholes starting last summer and fall on agricultural land east of Orland, in the area of Stony Creek, according to newly released public records.
Many of the sinkholes are relatively small and shallow, a few feet wide and less than a foot deep, for example. However, there are isolated reports of bigger sinkholes, as wide as 10 to 12 feet.
“The deepest is about 12 to 15 feet in depth — literally, a small child could have entered the tunnel that I observed at the bottom of that hole,” wrote Rick Massa, manager of the Orland Unit Water Users’ Association (OUWUA), in a Nov. 8 email to officials with Glenn County and the California Department of Water Resources after a follow-up visit to one hard-hit property.