Auburn Dam's demise has been foretold many times, but as long as it remains the one solution to our flooding woes, and provides the additional water supply so necessary for our growing region, it will struggle along until wise leadership gets it built.
Along with protecting the physical integrity of the Parkway and providing water cold enough and flowing at the right rate for healthy salmon, it is the only way Sacramento can achieve a 500 year level of flood protection, the gold standard most major river cities in the country have already achieved.
New Orleans had a 250 year level when it flooded, and virtually every other major river city in the country has a 500 year level. To see this in a graph go to the Department of Water Resources report: FloodSafe California: Rebuilding the System, Reducing the Risk and look at page 13.
Auburn dam may be dealt death blow
By Matt Weiser - mweiser@sacbee.com
Published 6:04 am PDT Friday, May 9, 2008
A long-stalled Auburn dam on the American River has suffered many defeats. But the next could be truly fatal.
The State Water Resources Control Board plans to revoke the water rights held by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for the project. The unfinished dam, in other words, would no longer have any water to hold back.
Reclamation halted construction on a dam more than 30 years ago due to earthquake concerns, leaving the river's north fork heavily scarred but not permanently blocked. A host of environmental concerns and ballooning costs have delayed the project ever since.
Though still coveted by some officials in the region, a dam is probably doomed without water.
"If they lose the water rights, it would be very problematic, I would think," said Bruce Kranz, a Placer County supervisor and chairman of the American River Authority, a joint-powers agency and leading dam advocate.
The original Auburn dam was approved by Congress in 1965. It was designed to store 2.5 million acre-feet of water behind a dam nearly 700 feet high adjacent to the city of Auburn.
Reclamation secured water rights for a dam from the state in 1970. Those rights allowed the agency to store a staggering amount of water – 5 million acre-feet – at different times of year for purposes ranging from power generation and recreation to farming and urban consumption...
But Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said his agency will argue to keep the rights. It requested a hearing on the matter before the water board, set for July 21 in Sacramento. A prehearing conference will be held June 4. Both are open to the public.
"This remains a congressionally mandated project," McCracken said. "The bottom line is, we continue to want to hold onto those rights because Congress told us to do something and it hasn't yet been completed."
