Conclusion
California’s water management system combines surface reservoirs with groundwater pumping to balance the needs of people, industry, and the environment. As the climate continues to change and competition for water continues to grow, state and federal decision makers will have to make hard choices about where to invest financial resources for future water reliability. Although tempting, raising Shasta Dam will not solve the core problems facing California water users in the coming decades. The costs versus benefits of spending $1.3 billion to deliver a small amount of water to select irrigation
districts in the Southern Central Valley does not add up. Alternatively, the huge potential storage capacity of the state’s 517 groundwater basins presents a viable long-term solution that will benefit both industry and the environment by making California’s water supply more resilient and dependable in the face of an uncertain future. With limited financial resources and scarce supplies, California needs to make efficient, sustainable investments to cope with its uncertain water future. Shasta dam raise is neither efficient nor sustainable.