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-n...315-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.