Vanishing Sea

[Jamo]

Ron...agree re Shasta...same with Oroville. One wet year doesn't end a drought. That's why I said its the small to medium sized dam that can be raised. That includes Friant, Pine Flat, Kaweah and Success down here (all obviously south of the Delta). Auburn should've been built decades ago to serve the needs of the Sacramento region, especially to help dilute its urban runoff. That amount of water damn near equals what is sent to LA, which gets the vast majority of its water from the Owens Valley and the Colorado.

Sacramento and the Delta are the problems right now, and has created the blockage. It's not just the pumps taking out the salmon's dinner (smelt), but increased salination of the Delta and the increased pollution coming from the Sacramento-Stockton area's outdated system (though Stockton has done a good job modernizing theirs).

I represent many growers in the Delta...wine growers in Lodi to asparagus farmers on various islands. They will tell you it's not so much the quantity of water but the lack of quality which is killing the Delta, on a much larger scale than Kesterson.

The peripheral canal was designed to be part of the state and federal water systems from the get go...just like drains from the Westside were supposed to be built to take runoff to the Bay. Half built system has resulted in a half assed result.

Unfortunately, too many folks have little understanding of the water situation and can speak only from a lack of information. When you live or die with water, like the folks around Redding or down here where crops are grown, it's frustrating to have to allow folks with no experience or knowledge have some say in the equation by uttering knee-jerk soundbites.

[Ron61]

Jamo I think you hit the largest point right on the head about the Auburn Dam. It should have been built long ago and raising the smaller ones that you list would help. It seems at times that people on down South of here think there is no end to the water that should be let through to them. Last year they had to shut down two of the generators at Shasta because the water was so low it was heating the river below to much for the salmon to survive. And I believe Coleman Hatchery here said they only had about 1/3rd of the normal fish run this last year. From what I have read and heard, more salt water is penetrating farther into the Delta, but there just isn't enough fresh water to flush it all back out. Thanks tom a near normal rainfall this Winter and a fair amount of snow pack in the mountains, this Summer won't be quite as bad as the past 5, but there still won't be nearly the amount of water they want down there. You know the layout of the towns here and we avoided having our water cut by 50% last year through a little know fact out of this area and wound up getting 90% of our normal city water ration. But it cost us quite a bit of money. I am not on the water board for the city but know the people that are and I spend quite a bit of time over at the city chambers talking with them. It was partly my proposal last year that got the extra water, but the screaming about the rates going up could be heard in Arizona. But they were gong to go up almost as much anyway and there would have been much less water.

Another thing that could come into play is if they are correct in forecasting that this summer here will be hotter than the last one which was a bad one. That would get rid of the snow pack to fast and it would all run off and be gone.

Ron