Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
December 3, 2008
1. Top Items -
Long-delayed
Associated Press
Auburn dam officially dies as board yanks water rights
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Long-delayed
Associated Press – 12/3/08
(12-03) 04:00 PST
The unanimous vote by the State Water Resources Control Board comes more than four decades after Congress authorized the Auburn Dam to control flooding along the
Board members said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had not done its job.
The state granted water rights to the bureau so it could fill the future reservoir but did so with conditions. The federal government had to complete the dam by December 1975 and start using the water 25 years later.
Work on the Auburn Dam stopped after a 1975 earthquake led to the discovery of a fault beneath the site, in the Sierra foothills about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento. Engineers redesigned the dam and raised the construction cost to more than $1 billion, a price that gave Congress another reason to delay action.
Scars remain where crews scraped away earth and trees on either side of the
"The chances of this project coming back are possible, but the obstacles they would have to jump over would be huge," said Paul Tebbel, executive director of Friends of the River, which opposes the dam. "Auburn Dam as we know it, we don't believe is going to resurface anytime soon."
Congress authorized the Auburn Dam in 1965 as part of the Central Valley Project, a network of 22 dams and canals that funnel subsidized water to farmers.
Daniel Merkley, director of water resources at the California Farm Bureau Federation, argued that the state needs more dams to meet its growing population and the changes projected from a warming climate.#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/03/BAKI14GC26.DTL
Auburn dam officially dies as board yanks water rights
By
The long-lived federal
The state water board drove the last nail into the coffin Tuesday, unanimously revoking the water rights it dedicated to the
"This is a death certificate," board spokesman William Rukeyser said following the 5-0 vote.
Under
But the bureau halted construction more than 30 years ago because of safety concerns following a 5.7-magnitude earthquake 50 miles north of
"You have to use water with due diligence and due faith, and that hasn't been followed here," water board member Arthur Baggett said before casting his vote to rescind the bureau's rights to 2.5 million acre-feet of water a year. An acre-foot of water covers 1 acre a foot deep, enough to supply an average family of five for a year.
That's by far the largest amount of revoked water rights in memory, board officials said.
The revocation opens the door to other applicants for those
The State Water Resources Control Board has rarely taken back water rights. It did so Tuesday only after 37 years had passed with no dam construction in sight.
"Without a doubt, the water board was patient – 37 years patient," Rukeyser said.
The bureau's proposal surfaced in President Harry Truman's administration, won congressional authorization in 1965, was redesigned after the 1975 quake and slowly petered out as cost estimates skyrocketed and the values of an unimpeded north fork of the American River rose.
The bureau had planned to store up to 5 million acre-feet for flood control, power generation, recreation and farming and urban consumption.
The water board many times had granted extensions to the bureau, which operates a network of aqueducts and giant dams including Shasta, Folsom and Friant near
In 2001, the board said it could not consider another extension unless the bureau documented the dam's environmental effects on the
"The bureau didn't follow through. So the water board had no choice but to move to revoke the water rights," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which formally protested the extension along with the local Friends of the River,
The bureau made no comment at Tuesday's water rights hearing in
The agency had argued that it should retain the water rights until Congress definitively decides whether to pursue or scrap the
"We see it as their decision," said Lynnette Wirth, a bureau spokeswoman in
A spokeswoman for Rep. Dan Lungren,
Rukeyser of the state water board said the bureau is welcome to reapply for water rights should Congress have a change of heart. But the bureau doesn't see that happening anytime soon.
"We don't see on our plate of key issues trying to revitalize
The finale of
The prospect of the dam surfaced in the race to be Doolittle's replacement.
Republican candidate Tom McClintock said an
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1444275.html
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