RESTORATION
In 2014, as required by law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) subsequently issued the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act Report for the Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation (SLWRI). In 2018, congress approved $20 million in Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act funding for preconstruction and design phases. According to BOR’s website, Reclamation now anticipates issuing the first construction contract related to dam raise by December 2019. Despite the optimism, several legal, regulatory, and financial hurdles stand between BOR and project implementation.
Raising the Dam: Tempting but Not a Solution
For many Californians, increasing the storage capacity of the state’s largest reservoir makes intuitive sense. The argument is simple: California needs more water, raise the dam, store more water, and deliver stored water as needed: problem solved.
But this logic overlooks three fundamental problems. First, capacity or no capacity, nature only provides so much water. Second, the cost versus the benefits of construction favor special interests, rather than the public at large. Third, better options exist for increasing storage and improving water management in CA. Each of these points is explained in more detail below. And fourth, the project has environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated.
Where Will the Water Come From?
On paper, raising Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet would increase total capacity by over 630,000 acre-feet or 13 percent of existing storage. But nature only provides this water one out of every five years because California exhibits one of the most variable climates on earth. Consequently, projected annual average deliveries will yield just 51,300 acre-feet: a miniscule volume of water when spread across the Central Valley Project (CVP). Actual deliveries to farmers and cities would total less than .2 percent of current agricultural and urban water use statewide: not enough to warrant negative environmental and cultural impacts. Absent adequate rainfall and snowmelt, The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) could raise the dam 100 feet but still fail to improve storage and delivery statewide during 80 percent of average water years because there is insufficient water to fill the reservoir in all but a handful of years. As climate variability increases over time, meaningless surface storage capacity becomes more and more obsolete and expensive to maintain.