Raising of Shasta Dam and the McCloud River

[TroutHunter10]

I know the McCloud river has a special place in many folks hearts-- mine included. Not to mention the most famous stain of trout in the world. I hope this doesn't happen ;(

"California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird wrote to congressional leaders this week, urging them to reject the Trump administration's plan to spend $20 million in 2019 on design and other "preconstruction" activities at Shasta Dam.

"The Shasta Dam enlargement project would inundate several miles of the protected McCloud River in violation of state law," Laird wrote. The McCloud is among the pristine California waters protected by the 1972 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which prohibits the state from supporting any projects that disturb such rivers."

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-shasta-dam-trump-20180315-story.html

[johnsquires]

Thanks for posting this very interesting read. It's always beneficial to dig down a few layers instead of just having a knee-jerk reaction or simply repeating what one has heard on entertainment channels posing as news channels (on both ends of the spectrum). And it is usually enlightening to follow the money.

[Bob Loblaw]

Cal Trout has a great video on this subject "Enough is Enough"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkJ5IdOIDuc&t=40s

[Woodman]

I don't have a side on this issue, but it's good to remember that everything is interconnected. The cold water from Shasta Reservoir, which will become more constrained with climate change, is the sole reason for the thriving trout fishery on the lower Sacramento. We fly fisherman tend to hate dams...unless of course they create tailwater trout fisheries.

[JasonB]

This would be tragic on a few levels. Yes the lower sac might be a great tailwater trout fishery, but I never want to trade a dynamic intact watershed for a tailwater trout stream. Ever. Shasta dam is what it at this point, but raising it higher isn’t something I can stomach. What bothers me is that with our current culture and policy on water consumption this wouldn’t “fix” any of our water issues. This would be about like just taking out another credit card because you’re running out of cash...
JB

[Darian]

Like others, I find free flowing, wild rivers and the surrounding scenery amazing. But it seems that there're so many factions of our population (some connected and very powerful) competing for water that I think there'll be even more proposals to create additional storage and diversion projects, unfortunately. Raising Shasta Dam is just one. Remember WaterFix or Temperance Flat or Sites Reservoir proposals??

WaterFix (the tunnels project) is an example of modifying part of a current water diversion/delivery system. It seeks to create a solution to the current intake/transport of Sacramento River water to the CVP/SWP pumps at Tracy but fails to consider that the balance of the transportation of the water is the Canal system downstream that's slowly being damaged by subsidence of land due to groundwater pumping. The point being that even with all of the negatives associated with that project, I have no doubt that it will be completed to the detriment of the CA Delta.

Hate to be pessimistic but I guess until we figure out how to stop people from coming here to live, we're going to have to get used to these projects.

[Rossflyguy]

I don't have a side on this issue, but it's good to remember that everything is interconnected. The cold water from Shasta Reservoir, which will become more constrained with climate change, is the sole reason for the thriving trout fishery on the lower Sacramento. We fly fisherman tend to hate dams...unless of course they create tailwater trout fisheries.

If Shasta Dam wasn’t there to create a good trout section we’d be fishing steelhead and year round salmon runs. I’d trade that any day for the current lower sac trout fishery. Don’t let one good small outcome cover up a larger negative outcome. Building the dam higher doesn’t guarantee the weather will cooperate and give us the water to store. Wasting tax payer dollars on a prayer. Put that money into water runoff in cities and regulating wasteful water practices. That’s where we’d get our extra water.

[tcorfey]

I may be wrong and maybe I do not understand the whole picture but aren't they talking about just raising the dam 20 feet higher? At a cost of 1.3 billion dollars.

Now I have spent time on a houseboat on the lake and when they pulse flow at night in the darkest hours I have had the lake drop 2 feet or more overnight. So would 20 feet higher result in only 10 days extra water?

Besides during drought years the lake does not start off at full anyway right? So how does this help?

[TaylerW]

This would be tragic on a few levels. Yes the lower sac might be a great tailwater trout fishery, but I never want to trade a dynamic intact watershed for a tailwater trout stream. Ever.
JB

The mccloud is not an intact watershed. The section we are referring to is below mccloud reservoir.....

[winxp_man]

Hate to be pessimistic but I guess until we figure out how to stop people from coming here to live, we're going to have to get used to these projects.

If CA government would stop building homes yes this might be possible. But I have been seeing news from all kind of different news outlets. All are talking about people leaving CA. But I guess in some way just as many might be coming in. I don't have enough research to put much more on the CA exodus of people in CA. I know this.... In my neighborhood they built about 100+ homes. Traffic as it is, is backed up about 1 mile near the area these homes are build. This shows that the governing body of people dont care. Let the infrastructure collapse but keep building homes no big deal.

Water has been regulated for the most part pretty crazy since the drought started. Fact of the matter there is Nor Cal residence had to deal with cut backs while (from some of the writings I have read) socal was told to use more.

This is all political, and like I tell everyone its not about sides. Its about money. Thus a people vs the .gov is what it becomes. They do not give two turtle shits about any of what the effects are upon natural resources are.


We are at almost 40 million people in this state. Canada has 32-33 million from what I recall last (the nation as a whole!). 1990 Cali was at 29 mil I think. Some numbers to think about. ;)

[Woodman]

Put that money into water runoff in cities and regulating wasteful water practices. That’s where we’d get our extra water.

Mostly it's not city dwellers using the water (directly). Urban water uses account for about 10% of the State's available supplies. Even if we reduced that in half, we're only taking about a 5% improvement overall.

The amount of water you use when you eat a hamburger is far greater than what comes out of your tap or your sprinklers.

[Ned Morris]

Everyone needs to read "The King of California - JG Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire" by Rick Wartzman. That will open your eyes

[Bob Loblaw]

As recently as the mid 80s California averaged about 300,000 new homes a year. The last decade we have averaged about 78,000. If you haven't noticed home prices have been skyrocketing...a direct result of a very constrained supply. we aren't building anywhere near enough housing, and the homes we build are in the wrong places. The average urban San Francisco city dweller uses a small fraction per day of the water used by a suburban dweller, but ourt cities have not been building more homes and all the development has been pushed into thirsty tracts in the central valley. The Bay Area has outsourced its middle class housing to Manteca and Lathrop. All that said, personal water use is about 10% of our overall water usage. Farms use about 80% and commercial about 10%. Farmers will tell you that the biggest use is "environmental" water flowing out to sea! They say that we "waste" 62% of our water by letting it flow down rivers and into the delta.

The principal reason we need more storage is because many farmers have completely tapped out their groundwater by over pumping and need more delivery water. We all drive the central valley getting to and from our favorite spots, and I can't be the only one who has seen all the new trees that were planted during the drought of the century! we keep expanding agricultural lands with water intensive crops and then demand more storage. How many almonds do we need to export to China? Should we dam all over rivers, store all our water, not let any flow to the ocean, so we can grow more nuts to export overseas?

If we can agree on more storage, expanding Shasta sould be at the bottom of the list of projects. Building a new dam at Sites makes a lot more economic and environmental sense, but the farmers continue the Shasta drumbeat because they have more control over that water....and Westlands bought most of the Lower McCloud a few years ago with this very eventuality in mind.

[Rossflyguy]

Mostly it's not city dwellers using the water (directly). Urban water uses account for about 10% of the State's available supplies. Even if we reduced that in half, we're only taking about a 5% improvement overall.

The amount of water you use when you eat a hamburger is far greater than what comes out of your tap or your sprinklers.

I didn’t blame people in cities. I said design a plan to catch runoff in cities. And as far as water to “grow” beef it takes 20k gallons to grow 70lbs of almonds. Don’t throw the vegan agenda in my face.

[Rossflyguy]

As recently as the mid 80s California averaged about 300,000 new homes a year. The last decade we have averaged about 78,000. If you haven't noticed home prices have been skyrocketing...a direct result of a very constrained supply. we aren't building anywhere near enough housing, and the homes we build are in the wrong places. The average urban San Francisco city dweller uses a small fraction per day of the water used by a suburban dweller, but ourt cities have not been building more homes and all the development has been pushed into thirsty tracts in the central valley. The Bay Area has outsourced its middle class housing to Manteca and Lathrop. All that said, personal water use is about 10% of our overall water usage. Farms use about 80% and commercial about 10%. Farmers will tell you that the biggest use is "environmental" water flowing out to sea! They say that we "waste" 62% of our water by letting it flow down rivers and into the delta.

The principal reason we need more storage is because many farmers have completely tapped out their groundwater by over pumping and need more delivery water. We all drive the central valley getting to and from our favorite spots, and I can't be the only one who has seen all the new trees that were planted during the drought of the century! we keep expanding agricultural lands with water intensive crops and then demand more storage. How many almonds do we need to export to China? Should we dam all over rivers, store all our water, not let any flow to the ocean, so we can grow more nuts to export overseas?

If we can agree on more storage, expanding Shasta sould be at the bottom of the list of projects. Building a new dam at Sites makes a lot more economic and environmental sense, but the farmers continue the Shasta drumbeat because they have more control over that water....and Westlands bought most of the Lower McCloud a few years ago with this very eventuality in mind.


Agree 100%

[BumpBailey]

As recently as the mid 80s California averaged about 300,000 new homes a year. The last decade we have averaged about 78,000. If you haven't noticed home prices have been skyrocketing...a direct result of a very constrained supply. we aren't building anywhere near enough housing, and the homes we build are in the wrong places. The average urban San Francisco city dweller uses a small fraction per day of the water used by a suburban dweller, but ourt cities have not been building more homes and all the development has been pushed into thirsty tracts in the central valley. The Bay Area has outsourced its middle class housing to Manteca and Lathrop. All that said, personal water use is about 10% of our overall water usage. Farms use about 80% and commercial about 10%. Farmers will tell you that the biggest use is "environmental" water flowing out to sea! They say that we "waste" 62% of our water by letting it flow down rivers and into the delta.

The principal reason we need more storage is because many farmers have completely tapped out their groundwater by over pumping and need more delivery water. We all drive the central valley getting to and from our favorite spots, and I can't be the only one who has seen all the new trees that were planted during the drought of the century! we keep expanding agricultural lands with water intensive crops and then demand more storage. How many almonds do we need to export to China? Should we dam all over rivers, store all our water, not let any flow to the ocean, so we can grow more nuts to export overseas?

If we can agree on more storage, expanding Shasta sould be at the bottom of the list of projects. Building a new dam at Sites makes a lot more economic and environmental sense, but the farmers continue the Shasta drumbeat because they have more control over that water....and Westlands bought most of the Lower McCloud a few years ago with this very eventuality in mind.

It burns my britches every time i drive south on I-5. The Resnicks are the greediest of the greedy. They don't give two cents about the environment and don't care that they are going to leave a shit hole behind for the next generations. It is sad. If you buy "Cuties" or POM the pomegranate juice. Please stop. You are helping them with their profits and the killing of our salmon. i won't buy gas at Chevron anymore either as they are huge corporate farmers here too.
Cadilsc Desert is another good read abut CA water wars.

[stefanoflo]

will the dam be able to Take the pressure with extra water ??How safe is the dam it self??. and I`m sure Its and Older dam .so with extra water Pressure .If something Happens .Oroville will look like a leak!!!!

[JayDubP]

A dumb question? Why didn't powers that be remove the silt and clay that became exposed when the lake was so low because of drought? Wouldn't that have increased the volume of water Lake Shasta could hold? Or is there an ongoing maintenance program that does this to keep the lake able to hold the maximum water?

Seems to me that dams stop silt and dirt from flowing downstream and so at some point, the dam might become so full of slit and dirt that it is useless as a water reservoir.

Jim

[Woodman]

A dumb question? Why didn't powers that be remove the silt and clay that became exposed when the lake was so low because of drought? Wouldn't that have increased the volume of water Lake Shasta could hold? Or is there an ongoing maintenance program that does this to keep the lake able to hold the maximum water?

Seems to me that dams stop silt and dirt from flowing downstream and so at some point, the dam might become so full of slit and dirt that it is useless as a water reservoir.

Jim

Trucks running up and down interstate 5 24/7, 365 days a year would start to make a dent...of course they'd need to find someplace to dump it where it wasn't environmentally damaging.

I calculate about 25 million truckloads to create the same storage as a 10 foot dam raise.

[Rossflyguy]

Trucks running up and down interstate 5 24/7, 365 days a year would start to make a dent...of course they'd need to find someplace to dump it where it wasn't environmentally damaging.

I calculate about 25 million truckloads to create the same storage as a 10 foot dam raise.

How’d you calculate that?

[Woodman]

How’d you calculate that?

(47 square mile surface area x 10 feet deep) / 20 cubic yards per truck

That's only about 50 years if we can move a truck out every minute.

[JayDubP]

Shasta Dam is 65 years old, seems if they had an ongoing dredging program it would still be at the original capacity--- it would appear to be common knowledge that dams will silt up and a required part of ongoing maintenance would be to keep the actual holding volume constant. In SSB/VB Counties if often see dredging equipment that appears to push the dredged material 1/2 to a mile through a 6 or 8ft diam steel pipe that is constantly re-positioned for the dredge material to be deposited in an area desired.
Primary areas I see them are Ventura Harbor, Channel Island Harbor & the Santa Clara River mouth (which dumps all flood garbage and overgrown vegetation (lots of bamboo) from 60+ miles of populated area.

[Bob Loblaw]

there are lots of places where dredge spoils are needed particularly for wetland remediation, but they cannot take spoils contaminated by old gold mining operations. Anyone know whats in the mud at the bottom of Shasta Lake? mercury? cyanide?