This dam in California can be expanded under Trump Caltets

From Alastair BlandCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Near the southern flank of Mount Shasta, springs and snowfall approach to form the McClud River. This tributary of the Sacramento River, kept sacred by the Winnemm Wintu tribe, littered with Chinook Salmon before Shasta Dam, built in the 40s, blocked their annual migrations.

“Winter running was the main source of feeding Winnemem Wintu throughout the history,” said tribe member Gary Mulcahi. “We consider them the grandfather of all salmon.”

For several years, Winnemm Wintu leaders have cooperated with state and federal employees with Re -enter the critically endangered fish On this waterway of the desert in historical efforts to revive McCloud and connect with their past.

But a federal proposal to increase the height of the Shasta Dam by more than 18 feet to provide more water to farmers, now threatens the land of the tribe and can harm the running of salmon.

Provided for decades and the acquisition of adhesion among republican legislators, proposed by the US Bureau of Reclamation Project to extend the shast dam and tank It would increase the capacity of the largest tank in California.

Since President Donald Trump has taken office for his second term, the federal government has not made any public efforts to raise the dam. But Trump has taken a few steps in this direction, including signing enforcement orders Instructing federal employees to abandon the environmental rules and deliver more water to California manufacturersS

Last week, the Dam Project appeared to get a boost to the house’s natural resources Committee Budget Coordination BillWith the determination of $ 2 billion “for construction and related activities that increase the capacity of the existing bureau for reclamation of surface water storage facilities.” Although the budget language does not name the Shasta Dam, experts say it is exactly designed to facilitate the project.

“There is no mystery here,” says Barry Nelson, a Golden State Salmons Association Advisor. “This language is intended to press the raising of the shast.”

The lifting of the dam was the water project “Number-One Priority” for the first Trump administration, Nelson said.

However, the US reputation, Doug Lamalfa, a Republican, whose area includes a shast and who helped to prepare the budget language, told Calmatters that while he was supporting the expansion of the Shasta Dam, “financing the bill is not for any specific project.”

Last year, a bill that would allocate funds To expand the dam while prohibiting state laws from impeding the project that died in the house. It is sponsored by 12 California Republicans, including Lamalfa.

The reclamation bureau, calculated in 2014, that the expansion of the Shasta Dam will cost $ 1.4 billion – approximately $ 1.8 billion in today’s dollars. Obtaining an array of state and federal permits for the dam may take years and will probably face legal challenges.

The project will provide an additional 51 300 acres of water annually to the recipients-the Central Valley Farmers and the State Water Project, according to A Federal assessmentS This would increase the amount they receive on average by less than 1%, which Ron Stork, a policy expert with a group of friends on the river called “decimal dust”.

The draft of the dam will claim some of the last remaining territory of Winnemm Wintu and may violate the Law on Wild and Picture Rivers of the State, which explicitly prohibits the construction of tanks The last miles of McCloud before entering Lake Shasta.

Civil servants have publicly opposes the project In the past. In 2013, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stated that the rearing of the dam would have “significant and inevitable effects” on the ecosystem of the Sacramento River. The US Fish and Wildlife Service also warned federal officials that the project would limit high water flows and reduce fish habitat.

Civil servants refused to comment on this story. The spokesman at the Reclamation Bureau Peter Soet also declined to comment.

A stork, a longtime opponent of raising the dam, said the Trump administration could ignore the state law. Trump January Enforcement order Federal employees have directed more water through the Central Valley project “by increasing storage and transportation … regardless of any contradictory or local laws.”

“We are sure to expect some serious mischief here,” Stork said. “The executive order of the President says more or less:” Please find ways to carry out my agenda by trying to bypass the state and federal law. ”

Mulcahy, the government connection of Winnemm Wintu, said that Lake Shasta was arched 90% of the historical territory of his tribe. “Rural sites, sacred sites, cultural gathering sites,” he said.

An increase in the height of the dam will cause even more damage, he said, periodically staggering many important places to collect, including the funeral of Kabyai Creek, where dozens of tribes members were laid to rest after a malicious slaughter of 1854 by white settlers.

It would also flood the Winnemm men’s cleaning pool, a river, a dancing meat and a young age ceremony for young women called Puberty Rock. This, Mulkahi said, will destroy some of the last remaining cultural filaments holding the tribe together, which he believes consists of about 140 members.

“We could not hold the ceremonies that are needed to fulfill our spiritual and cultural needs,” he said.

Winnemem Wintu are not included in Formal list to federally recognized tribes who could limit their impact on the project.

Polarizing farmers and conservationists

Like many projects for Delta and Central Valley Water Supply, Raising Shasta Polarizes Farmers and Environmental Protectors in a dispute how it will affect Chinook salmon.

Fishing environmentalists and advocates claim that this will eliminate the already declining salmon population while supporters of the project, including the Western Western district of Westlands, say it will help the ecosystem.

Westlands provides water imported the most from the delta to the farmers of the San Joaquin Valley, which grown 150,000 acres On pistachios and almonds – their main crops – as well as other fruits, cereals and vegetables.

But General Manager Alison Febbo said the Shasta project was not directly related to water supply. More recently, she said, aims to help the fish. Febbo explained that increasing the volume of the tank would retain its water more common, which is essential for spawning.

If the heavy position of the fish improved, Febbo said that regulations for water deviations could be relieved – which would be an indirect benefit to water users like Westlands.

“We continue to decrease as the species continues to decrease, so our water supply will not improve until the species becomes better,” Fabbo said.

Lamalfa also stressed that the project will be “profitable” by increasing the storage of water and better insulate the cold water pool on the tank.

“More water for people and more cold salmon water,” the congressman said.

Lifting the dam would mean “more water for people and more cold salmon water”.

US rep. Doug Lamalfa

But Nelson of the Golden State Salmon Association said the Shasta Dam is already “absolutely catastrophic for salmon.”

“The idea that raising the shast will be beneficial for salmon – especially with this set of federal agencies – is absurd,” he said.

Completed in 1945, the dam blocked Chinook from reaching hundreds of miles from the habitat of the flow. For the winter chinook-chinook, a unique life cycle involves staying and spawning in fresh water in the summer-the left-wing McCloud was their fortress.

“It can be 110 degrees in the canyon there and you can stand in the river in Vadley and your legs are so cold that it hurts,” says Rene Heri, California Director of Science with group trout unlimited as he explained the importance of McCloud for the future survival of the winter Chinook.

“The idea that raising the shast will be beneficial for salmon – especially with this set of federal agencies – is absurd.”

Barry Nelson, Golden State Salmon Assn.

Today, the fish – which enters fresh water in the winter – clicks in a short stretch of river downstream along the Shasta Lake, surviving thanks to the release of cold water stored deep in the tank. However, this resource often expires in the summer while the fish lies and fertilizes its eggs, which can cause complete damage to spawning toss in deadly warm water.

While the more voluminous reservoir can theoretically theoretically retain its water more cold, Heri said that the changing climate would probably complicate this equation. Completing the enlarged tank in a hot, drier future is the main problem.

“The dams don’t make water, so in low water a year, lifting the dam does nothing,” he said.

During the wet years, he added, the enlarged dam would harm the fish by taking over water, which would otherwise flood the vital habitat of the wetlands downstream, and the recently restored Yolo bypasswest of Sacramento. “The pressing we get on Yolo’s bypass is what supports salmon populations to hang in Sacramento,” Heri said.

John Rosenfield, the scientific director of the Advocacy Group San Francisco Baykeeker, added that “the expansion of the dam will capture more than the high streams (in wet years), which are now the only life line that these fish have.”

Mulkahi said he hoped the project – although he would currently rotate with the Republican horsepower – would soon expire with steam. Labor and material costs are increasing, he said, and the longer the project goes away, the more expensive it becomes.

“They will try to deny state legislation so that they can continue as they want,” Mulkahi said. “But if we can endure this, I think you can be buried once and for all.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.