Reasons to Fret (and Not Fret)

The McCloud River, pictured here, is protected by the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Credit: CA DWR

Fretting about the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act

President Trump and his people were on a mission (well, quite a few). Part of that mission was to expand Shasta Reservoir and its bathtub ring and drown more of the McCloud River.

The tricky part of that mission was that the project had been illegal since Republican Governor George “The Duke” Deukmejian had signed a bill to amend the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act (itself signed by Republican Governor Ronald Reagan) to protect the McCloud River. “Illegal since 1989” was a slogan that hurt.

Official portrait of Governor George “The Duke” Deukmejian. Public domain

So, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, eager to demonstrate its devotion to the 45th President, engineered a federal supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) that denied the legal reality it was facing. Our comment letter was eighty pages long, but in a nutshell we told them that they can’t decide in the EIS that state law could be ignored, and that trying to pretend that the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act actually specifically exempts Reclamation from its provisions was way too twisted, even for Reclamation.

Reclamation was undeterred, but the clock ran out before they could complete the whole NEPA process. So instead they have been sitting on a final EIS that adopts these views and declares the further inundation of the McCloud River to be its preferred project. Presumably, they have been waiting for the return of the Lord of the R…, Voldem…, or the man who says he won the election by a whole lot, a whole lot.

He may return. California and Friends of the River would be wise to prepare.

Not fretting about state parks

State parks should be protected by the California Department of Parks and Recreation from new reservoirs being plopped by others onto a state park. At least that is the plain reading of California’s Public Resources Code.

But when the Governor is supporting the dam project, such things may not be important.

Taking full advantage is the Santa Clara Valley Water District (renamed Valley Water), who proposes to doing the plopping with their proposed $3 billion Pacheco Dam.

There is money in the Santa Clara Valley, so the Valley Water board majority so far has not shied away yet from this expensive project.

But I think defending state parks is going to take some good lawyers.

But the Klamath River dams are coming out

On a more pleasant note, the four former PacifiCorps’ dams are coming down. The reservoirs have already been drained. Copco 2 Dam was removed in 2023. The remaining three are being removed this year, with Iron Gate the last to be removed.

While conditions on the Klamath River will continue to be impaired by Reclamation’s Klamath irrigation project, the river is returning to many miles of the Klamath River.

The bathtub-ringed lands will take some time to recover, but nature eventually heals.

Copco 2 Dam, slated to be removed this year. Credit: Klamath River Renewal Corporation