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Making a ‘new’ case for the Auburn Dam; Rumors of the dam’s demise greatly exaggerated, says commentary

Posted by: Maven on February 22, 2009 at 8:23 am

From the Sacramento Union, the first in a three-part commentary series on the Auburn Dam:

The Auburn Dam is dead. Late last year, the state of California revoked water rights issues issued to the federal government to build the Auburn Dam. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation did not protest the move. Thus, an obscure bureaucracy and gleeful environmentalists tell us the deed is done.

But wait: The Auburn Dam has been declared dead many, many times.

Using one complaint and lawsuit after another, environmentalists have obstructed new surface water storage anywhere in California. “Death by a thousand lawsuits,” Laura King Moon of State Water Contractors has said about water storage projects.

Studies, engineering reports and lawsuits disproved or mitigated every complaint—so much so that the Auburn Dam remained a vital part of every single California Water Plan until 1998. Thereafter, a white water rafter, Jonas Minton, became deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources. As he had in the Sacramento Water Forum, Minton stacked the water planning process with environmental extremists; inflated water conservation projections; summarily dismissed any new water storage; delivered a report years late and waterless; and dropped the Auburn Dam from the state plan for the first time.

To win, opponents of the Auburn Dam shout the loudest and speak the longest. Ultimately, intimidated bureaucrats and politicians have failed to protect the public interest they are obligated as civil servants and elected officials to protect.

So on Dec. 2, an obscure California bureaucracy, the State Water Resources Control Board, unanimously voted to steal water from the Auburn Dam project. Last nail in the coffin, it is said.

The board’s hearing was a phony show trial in which environmental extremists dominated the judge, jury, plaintiff and most of the defendants. Except for public comment from the Auburn Dam Council (an advocacy group backing the construction of a dam at the Auburn site), the interests of the people of California were not represented. The water board stacked or solicited letters on the opposing side; almost all letters came from outside the Auburn Dam area.

Read more of this commentary from the Sacramento Union by clicking here. The second installment of this three-part commentary series will be posted next Sunday. Hat tip to the Parkway blog!

February 22, 2009 · Filed Under Storage and supply

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