Salmon Activists Urge Humboldt County to Withdraw Support for Sites Reservoir
Spring Chinook [Photo from the Salmon River Restoration Council and Watershed Research And Training Center]
Withdraw Support for Sites Reservoir and Protect Trinity River on Dec. 10! More info at https://www.facebook.com/
events/458453541694465/or https://www.californiasalmon. Please attend the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 9 am, 825 Fifth Street, Eureka. Check the Board’s agenda for a specific morning time at https://humboldt.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and arrive early to get through security.
Encourage the Board of Supervisors to approve sending two letters to the Sites Project Authority and the Bureau of Reclamation. The first letter to the Sites Project Authority withdraws the Board’s conditional support for the proposed Sites Reservoir in the western Sacramento Valley until a specific condition is placed on the project’s water rights to not take water from the Trinity River, to protect Humboldt County’s 1959 water contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for 50,000 acre-feet of Trinity River water, and to protect the 2017 Lower Klamath River Record of Decision that provides Trinity River water In drier years to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic 2002 Lower Klamath River adult salmon fish kill.
The second letter requests that the Bureau of Reclamation and the Sites Project Authority issue a supplemental/recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report (DEIS/EIR) because of faulty modeling regarding the Trinity River. The 2016 DEIS/EIR hides adverse temperature impacts to the Trinity River in drier years, does not account for Humboldt County’s 1959 50,000 acre-foot water contract for Trinity River water.
Please come out and email and call these representatives and ask them to support the resolutions:
Supervisor Estelle Fennell: 707-476-2392 [email protected]
Supervisor Virginia Bass: 707-476-2394 [email protected]
Supervisor Rex Bohn: 476-2391 [email protected]
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
🕯🌳Good morning Kelley and thank you for that information and links.
This press release is woefully short on useful information.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sites_Reservoir
Sites Reservoir is a proposed large offstream reservoir in the Sacramento Valley in Northern California, to be operated by the California Department of Water Resources. Its primary purpose is to collect winter flood flows from the Sacramento River, diverting the water upstream of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and pumping it into an artificial lake located west of Colusa. The estimated water yield is 470,000 to 640,000 acre feet (580,000,000 to 790,000,000 m3) per year, depending on yearly rainfall and environmental restrictions.[1
Unlike other proposed reservoir projects in California, Sites would not directly affect fish migration because it is not located on a major river. In addition, if water for irrigation and Delta salinity control were provided from Sites, additional cold water could be retained in Shasta Lake for fall-run chinook and coho salmon.[14]
However, diversions could take more than 60 percent of the Sacramento River’s flow at certain times, potentially harming salmon and other fish species. The reservoir itself would affect habitat for 23 sensitive, threatened or endangered wildlife species.[13] Due to the low elevation and relatively dry climate of the reservoir area, about 30,000 acre feet (37,000,000 m3) of water would be lost to evaporation each year.[13]
The project would be operated in the interest of protecting fisheries, with such installations proposed as advanced fish screens at the pumping stations along the Sacramento River; potential modifications to upstream Shasta Dam to increase the supply of cold water available there; and modifications to the existing Tehama-Colusa and Glenn-Colusa Canal intakes that would be used by the project.[1]
The project would be operated in the interest of wealthy central valley farmers, with pathetic, symbolic environmental mitigations, and a heaping helping of green washing.
Fixed it for them.
That sounds like a baseless assertion. Winter water storage reduces impact on waterways during summer flows. How is this a bad idea? California is an agricultural power house, producing more food than most countries. Is there good reason to not support this?
The reservoir is not on a migratory spawning watershed. It will not impact upstream spawning habitat.
Ullr,
During the Bush administration “termination” of tribes was again floated as a policy possibility. The terms welfare and special rights are bandied about in many circles in reference to contractual obligations that were made by the US government in exchange for vast amounts of wealth. Those contractual obligations get underfunded consistently and only reluctantly addressed at all. The US government accidentally burned most of the records of its financial management of trust resources during a lawsuit to recover billions in “lost” funds that it managed on tribes behalf. The entire political discourse in non-tribal environments centers around tribal problems not the problem of the US government failing to meet of obligations and respect tribal communities. Each successive policy swing poses new problems for tribal communities.
“Their” interests are weighed against “ours”. I expect skepticism, and hope that it isn’t justified.
You make a good argument and I hope you are right. It leads me to a small amount of optimism but not nearly enough. Do you place your life or any of your personal wealth as surety against that which you believe tribal people need not fear? I think that would be quite altruistic and also extremely foolish from a self-interested perspective.
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Just heard that listening to Paul Stamets.
I’m not so naive to assume that the powers-that-be won’t manipulate contracts to their benefit if able, but within the context of making the best use of resources this seems to be a reasonable approach with minimal drawback within the current water use contracts.
This, of course, assumes that water rights to the new reservoir will not be allocated and will instead be used to buffer current water rights against over-stressing depleted water courses.
I don’t see this as “the good.”
The Shasta Dam was sold at its building as a way to manage the river system for drought conditions. It was not managed that way. So now that mismanagement is being corrected by building more infrastructure, with assurances that this time it will be managed as proposed. We are paying to fix a problem that was created by those who benefited from creating the problem and will now benefit from its supposed solution.
The Sites Reservoir has been previously been proposed as part of two other disastrous solutions to self created problems of the California Water infrastructure. One is to receive water from the proposed Dos Rios Dam on the Middle Fork of the Eel (put back on to the State Water Master Plan in late 2014). Two is the raising of the Shasta Dam. Neither of those two solutions has been taken off of the table. There have also been suggestions that once Klamath River water begins flowing more naturally, Trinity diversions to the Sacramento River can be increased.
My conservative self sees the building of public infrastructure to subsidize corporations as a sure fire way to mess up the incentives in an economy. My liberal self sees the huge subsidies as upsetting the economic power balance, giving an advantage to corporations over their human subjects. Both of these selves see the political cost of cozy relationships between the subsidized corporations and the ethically challenged political class.
And if I were a tribal person, I would be highly skeptical of promises to promote the greater good and protect my community while honoring all obligations
“There have also been suggestions that once Klamath River water begins flowing more naturally, Trinity diversions to the Sacramento River can be increased.”
Can you provide something to back that up? It doesn’t make sense. Although a tributary, the Trinity’s fisheries are pretty much seperate from the Klamath’s. Given the $10’s of millions put into the Trinity by the TRP it’s not a compromise that I see happening.
I live on the Trinity… I have a personal connection to solutions that don’t negatively impact this river.
I don’t like corporate welfare, but if the government is going to invest into infrastructure insuring that California’s bread basket has water to grow our food is worthy. If the water board allot new water rights to this reservoir then my point is moot as it will not alleviate pressure on existing resources. What is your solution?
I don’t have a stance on raising the Shasta dam. I don’t know the arguments. I know nothing of the Dos Rios dam proposal.
“Whiskey is for drinkin’; water is for fightin'”
You can get the Winnemem Wintu position on the raising of the Shasta Dam and the failure to manage the current dam according to its original justification. It’s a good place to start and is available by duckduckgo searching (I try to avoid being watched and guided by googles opinions about what I should want to search for) Caleen Sisk. She’s done a couple of documentary films and some videos and some public testimony. Friends of the River also has info. There is a group out of Chico that supports rational water use in California such as using water in the north where evaporation rates are much less and avoiding salinization of soils and irrigation drains. They generally support tribal and ecological water policies. I’ll see if I can find them too.
As I said below, the Dos Rios Dam which would have flooded Round Valley was set to expire by neglect in 2014. Late that year Jerry Brown quietly put it back into the State Water Plan.
The Dos Rios Dam was part of a massive plan to do to the Eel what has been done to the Trinity only more so. Its water was considered wasted by supporting fish and flowing to the ocean. Ronald Reagan, whose political base did not include the Southern California water thugs, and who had a personal thing for Indian Tribes, cancelled the the dam after visiting Round Valley. For a history that makes a saint out of Richard Wilson (who did a lot of good for the valley and also was a much better than average head of California Department of Forestry) and ignores some amazing work by Round Valley Tribal elders (since deceased) and now elders who were young then, you can read “The River Stops Here” by Ted Simon.
If you look at a map, you’ll notice that the Middle Fork Eel River flows around Round Valley, not through it. The water from the dam was however going to be impounded into Round Valley and back up the Black Butte River. This was intended to be supplemented by pumping water backwards from both the Main Stem and the North Fork involving three more dams, at least in the wet dreams of the dam builders. A tunnel from the Black Butte which flows into the MF Eel to the east of Round Valley was to run up and over the high crest of the Coast Range, into Grindstone Creek a tributary of Stony Creek. That was then to be either sent down Grindstone Creek to Stony Creek or backed up to the South Park Reservoir at Stonyford and pumped over the low pass to the proposed Sites Reservoir.
Have you seen all of the penstocks crawling around the Hetch Hetchy and the rest of the Tuolumne basin? The project was expected to provide its own power by raising it to the tunnel then dropping water from the 1400 ft elevation of Round Valley to the 250 ft elevation of the bottom of the Sites Dam.
That the Sites Dam was resurrected shortly after the renewal of the planned status of the Dos Rios Dam and Grindstone Tunnel is of concern to me. That the water available to fill the Sites Reservoir from the Sacramento River is not clearly available as the Sacramento is currently managed amplifies that concern.
And for a quick look backwards on some of the history of boondoggles to waste water, enrich the construction industry, subsidize almonds or oranges or cattle or fracking through cheap water, and pay off political debts, the LA Times has a somewhat retrospective 1990 article that looks back to the late 70’s. It’ll give you an idea why the politicians love droughts to energize the pork barreling through fear and mismanagement.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-09-02-op-1686-story.html
Price any water that is diverted from its home watershed to pay the entire infrastructure cost including capital costs, the environmental cost and the value of that water in its home watershed, or at competitive prices within the watershed that it is shipped to whichever is greater. I’ll buy some projects at that price. I think you’d find people saving a lot of water, using it well, recycling water and doing without. The only exception is drinking water; that’s a right. Solar composting toilets in the sunny south, now!
I assume you read this:
https://kymkemp.com/2019/11/14/today-us-court-of-appeals-upheld-senior-water-rights-of-tribes/
“The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today upheld the senior water rights of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and other Tribes in an appeal by Baley v. United States. Baley and other Klamath Irrigation District farmers argued that the federal government took their water without compensation in 2001 when water deliveries were delayed in order to satisfy the needs of endangered fish in Upper Klamath Lake and salmon in the Klamath River. The Court reasoned that because the Tribes’ water rights were reserved in the 19th century, they were entitled to be fulfilled first before the farmers were entitled to any water.”
Yep. I am also aware that, if appealed to the Supreme Court, there is danger that this will be overturned or very narrowly interpreted. The question at issue is the payment of damages to the irrigators; the supremes could still rule against the irrigators so that the government didn’t have to pay and narrow the protections for tribal interests. The Salem Statesman Journal reported that the irrigators had not decided whether to appeal. The current court would make me nervous. More so if Trump appoints another Supreme Court judge.
I believe that the amount of “paper water” committed from the Trinity River (water that never existed but has been sold or promised) exceeds the actual amount of water in the river. You can’t fix that without taking away “water rights” or taking more water.
Data please.
I’ll repeat what I said below:
“This is my best approximation of what I have learned. Trinity and Upper Sacramento concerns are much less personal for me so I may have some details slightly askew. You can look this stuff up. Sorry, I don’t retain sources very well but I follow the story lines as accurately as I am able.”
I’ll do my best here to support your research, maybe you’ll find something that contradicts my impressions and assertions. Always interested to find out.
My likely sources on the Trinity are conversations with people who have been connected with Klamath Compact negotiations or scientists surrounding that process, or Friends of the River, or PCFFA. But I recall the paper water numbers being put up in a public presentation which I checked at the time with other sources.
The best place I can find to begin is here: http://www.c-win.org/… I got there from the article quoted below ( which is quite funny in its content about some fictionalized water use reporting by some Trinity basin folks):
https://yubanet.com/california/trinity-diverters-reported-using-one-trillion-acre-feet-of-water-more-than-all-of-the-earths-water/
“Paper water” is water that exists as water rights claims in legal documents but not in the real world, according to the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) website, There is far more water promised “on paper” to stakeholders than there is in California’s waterways.
“For every acre-foot of real water in the Central Valley watershed, 8.4 acre-feet of water on paper has been promised by the state where only 1 acre-foot may actually be diverted, according to the State Water Resources Control Board,” the website notes.
“The fact that this discrepancy has languished for decades is a sign of magical thinking on the part of water industry officials and regulators in California. It’s far past time for this practice to stop,” C-WIN states.
For more information about “paper water” and what we can do to end this practice, go to: http://www.c-win.org/…”
I’ve also done my own sleuthing on eWIRMS the state waterboard data portal: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/ewrims/
Sometimes it takes some work to find out if diversions between systems are counted twice or not counted at all in one system or the other. Friends of the River often has good information on these things.
With regards to your yuba net link I assume their editor and copy /paste failed to translate the equation accurately. I think the quote from the water board should have read 1×10^20 acre feet of water not 1×1020.
Water use in California is exceedingly complicated by the inept bureacracies and the power mad “rights” holders pulling strings to their benefit.
I understand your concern with regards to the Eel and using the Sites reservoir as justification for creating new diversions from that watershed.
Within the context that is currently on the board for the Sites reservoir I see it simply as a large water tank within an existing watershed used to store excess winter runoff for summer use. No different than anybody’s water tanks for their summer use.
Except…. then politics and money come into play and it turns to shit.
Here’s a pretty balanced story on the project without mention of the Eel.
http://chicosol.org/2019/05/28/sites-reservoir-become-biological-wasteland/
Colusa County
California 95979
https://maps.app.goo.gl/pL4FC2wFKdfe5e9PA
The reservoir would be near here with water pumped from the Sacramento River during high winter flows. The pumping station would be in Red Bluff and would use an existing canal system.
Assuming the state honors existing water rights, treaties and judicial precedent this project would have zero impact on the Trinity River and help Sacramento River salmon by reducing demand on river water during lower flows.
“Assuming the state honors existing water rights, treaties and judicial precedent . . .”
Well we certainly have little hope in relying on judicial precedents being on the side of the environment when it comes to water management. As for the rights and treaties, we would be much safer assuming these are not honored in the long run.
“However, diversions could take more than 60 percent of the Sacramento River’s flow at certain times, potentially harming salmon and other fish species. The reservoir itself would affect habitat for 23 sensitive, threatened or endangered wildlife species.”
“Help us oppose the new $ 4.7 billion proposals to build up to 11 new dams and two new large reservoirs on 14,000 acres off of the Sacramento River. The new Sites and Holthouse Reservoirs (from the Sites and Golden Gate Dams) in Northern California could store up to 1.8 million acre feet of water, making them almost half the size of Shasta Reservoir and twice the size of Folsom reservoir. They would be owned by the Sites Project Authority, which is made up mainly of State Water Project (SWP) water contractors and irrigation districts. The authority is already offering new water rights in watersheds where five times more water is allocated than exists to powerful water districts, such as the Metropolitan Water District. A previously filed water rights application for the Sites project asked for 3 million acre feet of water a year.”
– https://www.californiasalmon.org/projects
I worked for the Westlands Water District, it was entirely composed of multi-millionare farmers, most wealthy from government subsidies.
Since 2000 under Bruce Babbitt treaties pertaining to water in the Trinity have been honored and judicial precedent has upheld these contracts. With regards to what the diversion “could” do is not what the plan is, and given the intense environmental scrutiny it is doubtful that will happen. Are you against large water storage infrastructure simply because some central valley farmers have accumulated wealth? That seems absurd.
I do not like how Westlands has managed their water rights to the Trinity, but that is not pertinent to this project.
Seems to me the argument between Ullr Rover and hmm is not on the project itself, but on the contractual details regarding how, why, and when the stored water would be dispersed.
If the result of this project would truly be improved water conditions for salmon and other wildlife with minimal adverse effects, it would seem to be a no brainer. If it’s just another water grab by millionaire “farmers” so they can grow cotton in a desert using subsidized water, then no.
That’s a reasonable summary.
Thanks for this, Kelley! I’m reading a book called “The Dreamt Land” by Mark Arax, which is a real eye-opener re the history of big ag and the diversion of water from the Sacramento basin to southern California. Over and over again, the transfer of water from one watershed to another is supposedly justified by the need to “save” existing farms, but once the project is approved, big ag expands its footprint, even into places that Nature never meant to support farms.
“Sites,” by the way, is this obscure place near Stonyford (ever heard of Stonyford?) — a very interesting trip through the eastern Coast Range, in an area that already supports several small reservoirs with water from tributaries of the Sacramento.
I think the proposed reservoir is further east of Stonyford so it can dump back into the Sacramento river basin and be filled via an existing aqueduct.
Dropped pin
Near Williams, CA 95987
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hq7H88Knee6S9xdAA
Ullr,
The Sites Reservoir proposal has a history that is much more complicated than that.
Trinity/Klamath impacts: Much “Sacramento River” irrigation water comes from the Trinity River projects. The amounts of water diverted to the Sacramento River basin are insufficient for the water rights that depend up on them. In other words massive amounts of “Trinity River water rights” in the Central Valley simply don’t exist. There have been proposals and mechanisms to support those proposals, that allow the removal of the Klamath Dams to “offset” increased Trinity diversions. That would mean less water in the Trinity supposedly “offset” by more water in the Klamath. The math of these diversions is always subject to change, particularly based upon emergencies. The ability to put the Trinity Project water into the Sites Reservoir is at least as good as the Sacramento and maybe better ( I think they are equal but I don’t want to overlook infrastructure that I may be unaware of). Residents of the Klamath Trinity watersheds have reason to be concerned.
Upper Sacramento Basin problems: The quantities of water targeted for the Sites Reservoir may not actually exist. The infrastructure for filling the Sites Reservoir may not actually allow its filling for quite a long time. The most recent plan for the Sites Reservoir began with its value in improving the performance of a raising of the Shasta Dam. They say that that is no longer in the (short range) plan. The raising of the Shasta Dam has numerous problems including that the water is simply not there to fill it under current operating conditions. Important considerations on that raising are that a potential work around for Salmon migration into the upper Sacramento River above Shasta Dam via the McCloud River would be eliminated. Winnemem Wintu traditional practices and rights would further be eroded. The CURRENT narrative is that the Sites Reservoir eliminates the need for the Shasta Dam raising (last I heard). In neither case is it clear that the amount of water available from the Sacramento is sufficient to fill the Sites reservoir and maintain it as a viable source of “reserve.”
This should be of concern to Trinity Basin residents .
Eel River Basin concerns: One of the original proposals for a Sites Reservoir came from a 1960’s dream to divert large amounts of Eel River “surplus” water via the Dos Rios Dam and the Grindstone Tunnel (penstock). The original plans for those diversions involved a Main Stem Dam near Alder Point, a North Fork Dam and an upper Main Stem Dam at English Ridge (downstream from Hearst). The mandate for a Dos Rios Dam and Grindstone Tunnel were scheduled to completely expire in 2014. Jerry Brown, whose family interests and political interests connect heavily to southern California and South Central Valley water interests, quietly put the Dos Rios Dam back into the State Water Project plan in November or December of 2014. Sites study and PR revival seemed to me to be related and of concern. Given the above insufficiencies in the both the Sacramento and Trinity River water supplies I believe that the citizens of the Eel should be concerned.
A couple of other concerning related issues:
The Shasta Dam was originally proposed to mitigate drought and provide a reserve. Instead the water rights were sold and put in use under ordinary circumstances. California wastes water, because it’s profitable to do so. Instead of reigning in waste and the improper allotment of the Shasta water, the state now proposes to solve its emergency by building more. Really? I’m super skeptical.
Small household water rights regulation now allow the residents of coastal river systems to register for household scale subsistence type water rights. That is true in every coastal river basin except The EEL, The TRINITY (and possibly though I’m not certain The MATTOLE and the MAD). Those household water rights (whatever they are called) are senior to and superior to large scale diversions such as large dam projects. While researching the lack of these rights for the EEL and other north coast systems to see if homestead diversions could be rationalized for subsistence type small family growers, I kept running into either a very blank wall, or speculation by low level bureaucrats that the State Water Board planners would never give up dreams of diverting the Eel and more diversions for the Trinity.
This is my best approximation of what I have learned. Trinity and Upper Sacramento concerns are much less personal for me so I may have some details slightly askew. You can look this stuff up. Sorry, I don’t retain sources very well but I follow the story lines as accurately as I am able.
One more important perspective: The California Water Project views rivers, and the watersheds that feed them as a series of catch basins and ditches to be dammed. The natural processes that provide the water, and the living communities that inhabit them are modeled as game pieces to be measured and manipulated for maximum yield. That includes the human communities. I believe that this kind of thinking is appropriate, maybe, for small children playing in the sand with small streams at the beach. A river is not a ditch. A watershed is not a catch basin. A dam is a large complicated piece of technology (witness the Oroville Dam near-disaster) not a toy. My life is not, the lives of the fishes are not, the community of plants and soil microbes are not, the insects and birds and mammals that I share my home with are not game pieces to be played with.
You can dive into the politics of Small Irrigation Use water rights by reading the state water law.
It would allow small agricultural water use, except that before this category of water right is made available the Waterboard must adopt “general conditions”. They are not required to do so until the adoption of general conditions has been funded. This process has not been funded for the Eel Basin the Trinity Basin or any stream flowing into the ocean north of the Mattole. (https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/instream_flows/docs/adopted_policy.pdf#page=20) I have been told that it will not be funded, in order to prevent Small Irrigation Use water rights from being established in the Eel and northward.
One web accessible site is at the California Codes section on Water law: ARTICLE 2.7. Registration of Appropriations for Small Domestic, Small Irrigation, and Livestock Stockpond Uses [1228 – 1229.1]
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=WAT&division=2.&title=&part=2.&chapter=1.&article=2.7.
It has been funded through fees associated with the Small Irrigation Use Registration. $750 to register and I believe annual fees after that of $250. There have been hundreds of Small Irrigation Use Registrations issued to cannabis farmers required to divert to storage during the winter months. There are still issues with water law where you cannot store that water more than 30 days but that is being overlooked and a change to water law is most likely in the works.
The trinity river has been ruined by trinity and lewiston dams and the diversion of its water to the Sacramento. This has aided in ruining the klamath too. No more diversions!