Shasta Dam expansion plan: Flood of concerns
Anglers, Wintu fear Shasta Dam raising will drown treasured sites
By Dylan Darling (Contact)
Monday, February 19, 2007
MCCLOUD RIVER -- The nation's largest water district is now in the private fly-fishing club business.
But Westlands Water District's $35 million purchase of the Bollibokka Fishing Club and almost 3,000 acres of pristine wilderness along a seven-mile stretch of the McCloud River just north of Lake Shasta has nothing to do with rods and reels and everything to do with crops in the San Joaquin Valley and raising Shasta Dam.
"We did not want to see the use of this land to be changed to impede the potential of raising the dam," said Tom Birmingham, general manager for Westlands, a Fresno-based district that counts more than 700 farms as members and covers more than 600,000 acres in western Fresno and Kings counties.
The Bureau of Reclamation has been studying the possibility of raising the dam since 1980 and expects to have a feasibility report complete next year that will detail whether the dam, and Lake Shasta, will be going up.
Ahead of the wave
While the bureau is looking at possibly raising the dam 6½ feet to 18½ feet, the dam's base could support a raise of up to 200 feet. Tourists often hear that when they visit the dam, which was built between 1938 and 1945. The original plans called for an 800-foot dam, but the lack of supplies and labor cut it to 602 feet.
