County funds should stay with county projects while state funds should help fund the dam, supervisor says.
An excerpt.
Kranz: County windfall won't be spent on dam
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
By: Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer
Placer County Supervisor Bruce Kranz's support for the Auburn dam is well known but his future vision doesn't include using any of the Middle Fork Project's lucrative cash windfall to pay for it.
Kranz said that while his stance is that the $25 million to $90 million that could be reaped from hydro-electric generation should be used on water-related infrastructure, water-quality related projects and energy infrastructure, he would oppose any money flowing toward the Auburn dam.
Kranz said he's not proposing exactly how future funding would be spent. Because of the dependency on water supplies and changing weather patterns, estimates on yearly revenues have ranged from $10 million to $90 million. County projections uses to determine financing were on the lower end -- between $10 million and $15 million.
Future Middle Fork Project revenues should be treated as a reward to Placer County's residents for approving initial financing in the early 1960s by a 25-1 margin, he said. Kranz's proposal calls for special districts and cities to be added to a joint county-water agency commission set up earlier this year to handle the financing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing and then divide revenues afterward.
Replacing septic tanks with wastewater treatment plant connections and bringing treated water to customers who don't have access now are two of the possibilities Kranz sees for using the millions of dollars coming the county's way. He wants that money dedicated to water and energy uses.
But the multipurpose Auburn dam Kranz has been actively supporting as both a supervisor and chairman of the American River Authority is not in his spending plans for Middle Fork funds.
"The Auburn dam is clearly a state project," Kranz said. "I absolutely don't approve (of Middle Fork money for the dam) and will fight it tooth and nail."
The Placer County Water Agency assumes full financial control of the 50-year-old water-and-hydroelectric power project on the American River's middle fork seven years from now -- barring any unforeseen delay in its $50 million relicensing effort with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
