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Auburn Dam may really be dead this time

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 6:55 am

From the Los Angeles Times:

Use it or lose it is the rule of California water rights, and after 43 years, the would-be Auburn Dam — subject of one of the state’s bitterest water feuds — is about to lose it.

The proposed plug on the gold-sprinkled American River northeast of Sacramento has been declared dead many times since Congress authorized it in 1965, and there may be no reviving it now. The state is poised to take back the legal right it granted to the federal government to store water behind the dam. Without that right, the federal government cannot build a reservoir, and the state has never been inclined to build one itself.

“Auburn Dam” are fighting words in Northern California, pitting river rafters and other nature lovers against those who say that California’s thirst and the Sacramento area’s vulnerability to floods demand the trapping and storing of more Sierra snowmelt.

Money is at the heart of the fight. Dam opponents argue that the multibillion-dollar price of an Auburn Dam would outweigh its benefits, while backers say a dam would eventually pay for itself and save untold lives. The struggle has played out for decades in Congress and in the halls of Sacramento and Placer County governments.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

November 16, 2008 · Filed Under Water Storage

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