Raising of Shasta Dam and the McCloud River

[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?