In this story from today’s Auburn Journal, we get a local look at the American River Authority meeting on Monday to be the local sponsor for the Auburn Dam; a crucial part of the project.
Here is an excerpt.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Sponsor plan on dam still afloat
By: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer
Bruised by sometimes-hostile speakers and battered by a 'no' vote from its Placer County Water Agency representative, the American River Authority left the door open Monday to becoming a major player in Auburn dam funding and construction.
While the board wasn't prepared to make a commitment on becoming a local sponsor in partnership with a renewed push at the federal level to build a dam on the American River, a 4-1 vote indicated a willingness to study the idea of possibly issuing bonds to partly finance the project in the future.
Chairman Bruce Kranz said that the consensus was to wait on whether to consider a commitment until after a $1 million U.S. Bureau of Reclamation study commissioned by pro-dam Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, was completed in August. Cost estimates for what is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar project are to be part of that report.
Kranz, a Placer County supervisor, also suggested that the wait may have to be extended because of $3 million more in funding that is now moving through the approval process in Washington -- again being steered through by Doolittle - for a feasibility study and an examination of a new dam-related bridge crossing for Highway 49 between Auburn and Cool.
Members of the joint powers authority voted 4-1 to move ahead with what authority Director Jack Sweeney, an El Dorado County supervisor, said were steps that would provide answers to some crucial questions that were being asked at Monday's meeting on financing and local-sponsor duties.
On Sweeney's motion, the authority board voted to request its staff to work with federal and state governments to determine the responsibilities the American River Authority would have if it took on the local sponsor funding responsibilities. Kranz has suggested that the local share of funding could be recouped through power and water sales from the dam while the flood-endangered Sacramento area could be brought in to pick up the flood-control share of local costs.
Kranz, Sweeney, public member Roy Ruhkala of Rocklin, and El Dorado County Water Agency representative JoAnn Shepherd voted in favor of the motion, which also calls for a look at potential bond-financing requirements and a review of a future federal feasibility study.
