The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

This thread discusses the Content article: McCloud Threats

Wow. I did not know about the Westlands deal. That stinks.

It stinks very, very badly... darn near made me cry.

Here's another interesting read from the record searchlight:
http://www...7/feb/19/flood-concerns/

It's amazing how these things happen and most people have no idea.

-Greg

I've been publishing a fair amount of Westlands-related news on the Trout Underground, and what the Redding Searchlight story didn't report was Westland's real motive for wanting Shasta Dam raised.

Currently, they don't receive their full allotment of water under contract (they clearly don't need all of it). They believe that if Shasta Dam is raised, they'll receive more taxpayer-subsidized water, which they can turn and sell to urban areas at an obscenely huge profit.

In other words, while some would couch the raising of Shasta Dam in how it's "good for fisheries" -- the real motives of many behind the plan are purely profit based.

Nice, eh?
Tom Chandler

Very true Tom. It's a bad deal for just about everyone, except Westland... water politics are crazy and turn some normal allies into foes.

Cheers.

B-

Have you any inkling what their intention is?

Never mind. Just read the article GM posted.

Don; They want to remove any roadblocks to the raising of Shasta Dam -- and just 6' or 18.5'. They want to raise it the full 200' (can you imagine how much of the Pit, McCloud and Upper Sacramento Rivers we'd lose?).

Their goal is to receive their full water allotment -- so they can turn around and sell it to urban areas at an obscene profit (after buying it at heavily subsidized rates).

I covered this in the Trout Underground here:
Westlands Wants Shasta Dam raised 200 feet

You can see all my Westlands-related posts (no love lost) here:

Westlands posts

Most frustrating has been the support of politicos like Feinstein on this -- people who should know better.

TCWriter wrote:
Don; They want to remove any roadblocks to the raising of Shasta Dam -- and just 6' or 18.5'. They want to raise it the full 200' (can you imagine how much of the Pit, McCloud and Upper Sacramento Rivers we'd lose?).

Their goal is to receive their full water allotment -- so they can turn around and sell it to urban areas at an obscene profit (after buying it at heavily subsidized rates).

I covered this in the Trout Underground here:
Westlands Wants Shasta Dam raised 200 feet

You can see all my Westlands-related posts (no love lost) here:

Westlands posts

HI Tom, given that Lake Shasta is DOWNSTREAM from the pit, McCloud, and Upper Sac, no, I dont really see how we would lose ANY of those streams. You could dam lake shasta so high that no water trickled down the lower sac and it still wouldnt affect any of those three feeder streams. I know, working too many hours, everyone has a brain fart

As far as Westlands goes, given the extreme importance of water, I think it should be legislated like a utility, including the reselling of it, IE limit the amount you can resell it drastically, well under a %100 profit

That being said, information about this stuff was posted on NCFFB when it happened--perhaps some folks just weren't paying attention.

As to TCWriter's comments about Feinstein--she is almost always on the corporate side of water issues. She's a bit of a social liberal and much more conservative about some other issues. I know it's shocking, but I'm a liberal. And DiFi is not someone I align myself with for the most part.

I'm missing you; raise Shasta's Dam one foot, and you lose all riverbeds less than a vertical foot in elevation above the current lake level.

Raise the dam 50 feet, the water backs up higher, and you'll wave good-bye to all the riverbeds less than 50' in vertical elevation above the current lake. If you look at a topo map, you'll see that 200' of elevation will consume a lot more riverbed than you think.

Here's something to think about. Given the current population growth and the greater demands on water in the state, even if the dam were raised, do you think that it would ever fill? We'd have to have several years in a row of wet winters.
And something is definitely wrong if they can buy subsidized water and then sell off their surplus at a profit. That is WRONG.