Federal government allocates $40 million in preparation for potential Shasta Dam raise
One Big Beautiful Bill funding will be used to make progress towards raising the Shasta Dam, federal government officials announced today. The money allocated so far isn’t nearly enough to actually do so.
The federal government has announced that $40 million from the One Big Beautiful Bill — a controversial budget law passed last year by Congress — will be invested in preparations to raise the Shasta Dam.
In addition to the Shasta Dam project, the U.S. Department of the Interior also announced today nearly $1 billion in funding for a number of water-related projects across California and other western states. The money, which will be administered by the Bureau of Reclamation through 2034, is intended to increase surface water storage and strengthen systems that move water, the press release said.
A little over half a billion of the funding will go to California projects. Money allocated to the Shasta Dam will support “planning and preconstruction activities” associated with raising the dam to increase water storage capacity by approximately 634,000 acre-feet, or enough to supply about 2.5 million people for a year, the federal government said.
But actually raising the dam would require much more than the $40 million being invested by the federal government so far. In 2014, the Bureau of Reclamation estimated that raising the dam would cost approximately $1.4 billion, an amount that’s closer to $2 billion in today’s dollars.
The federal government has referred to President Donald Trump’s approach to funding water systems as a strategy to “advance energy dominance.” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared a broader vision today, saying in the press release that the investment will strengthen water security and support farmers, communities and industries that depend on reliable water supplies while making food more affordable for American families.
The press release made no mention of tribal interests. The building of Shasta Dam in the 1940’s flooded out much of the ancestral land of the Winnemem Wintu, and the Tribe has long opposed raising the dam which would claim some of the Winnemem Wintu’s last remaining territory, according to Chief Caleen Sisk. She’s an internationally known advocate for the Chinook salmon, a keystone species that the Winnemem Wintu hold sacred. The Tribe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CalMatters reported last May that raising the dam could also violate a state law known as the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, saying that state officials have spoken out against the process in the past. Environmental advocates, including Friends of the River and the Shasta Environmental Alliance, have also opposed raising the dam, in part because of its expected impact to salmon.
But former Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who represented Shasta before dying unexpectedly earlier this year, was a proponent of finding a way to store more water in the North State, even if that water would largely be diverted south, to quench the thirst of Central Valley farms.
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How about instead of raising the dam. Finish the Sites ireservoir. or. quit building huge subdivisions, Where there is no water! Take that money and build desalination plants to make your own clean water.like they do in the Middle east.No matter how much water we retain, Ut will never be enough. Make Southern Ca, learn how to conserve water! not every home needs a swimming pool or huge green lawn. I bet Newsoms Vineyard’s or winery’s are never short on water.. and yet. They cut off the water to the farmers that grow the food that feeds this country. People that were a lot smarter then the engineers today. Knew how wide the base of the dam, Needed to be to hold back the water at the height that it is now, Raising it, will screw up that formula. and if the dam breaks enrtybody will cry. How could this happen!
Only the Federal Government would believe that perfect needs to be fixed. The dam might not burst, but we are still currently passengers on a ship of fools that will eventually–like the Titanic–sink into deep, dark sea.
Do they think by raising the dam it will cause the almighty to make it rain more. And how many businesses and roads around the lake will be underwater,!,
“preparations to raise the dam”….how many time does the federal government need to sink millions of dollars into a boondogle project like this? They have been studying the proposed project for more that 50 years! The Bureau of Reclamation is famous for their propaganda and are very good at “modeling” statistics to meet whatever their agenda is. Doesn’t anyone else see how they have kept the water level in the Shasta Lake Reservoir at full capacity for a record number of years? Check the statistics, when water isn’t released during drought years, the lake will fill, and people south of Shasta Dam will go without.
The $40M isn’t intended as funding to initiate construction. It’s essentially to take the proposed project out of mothballs. That updating might entail refining the costs that were calculated during the Feasibility Study (finalized in 2015) and determining if the findings of the NEPA documents need any updates (Supplemental EIS finalized in 2020). I doubt it’s enough money to redo the Feasibility Study in detail, or to prepare another Supplemental EIS. Or if BOR determines that the prior FS and NEPA documents aren’t stale, the $40M could be used as seed money for finalized project design and preparation of construction bid items.
I had a conversation with someone in the know yesterday who was describing some of the proposed schemes for getting salmon to migrate around the dam and up to the McCloud River. One scheme involves North Cow Creek (which runs through my back yard) and some lengthy tunnels carved through the area’s limestone rock. :::boggle:::
Yeah, it will never happen. 40 million wouldn’t even pay The attorneys s add legal fees.
In the meantime, Trump is spending roughly a billion and a half a day his Iran folly called operation Epic Epstein Cover-Up.
I agree with you that the dam raise will never happen– it’s impossible. In the meantime, I am glad that Trump is liberating Iran.