California Republicans fighting again to raise the Shasta Dam. Will state law prevent it?

The Shasta Dam started to leak at the end of May after the snowpack from the wet winter started melting. To Californians who have suffered decades of drought, that was good news.

The Shasta reservoir, California’s largest, sends water to farmers and families in the Central Valley, where a third of the nation’s produce is grown. It almost reached capacity after years of not filling up. At its peak, Shasta Lake can hold more than 4.5 million acre-feet of water. (An acre-foot is the annual consumption for two average households.)

Raising the dam, located on the upper Sacramento River northwest of Redding, to increase Shasta reservoir’s capacity has long been on the list of some federal lawmakers. The 18.5-foot rise would provide 634,000 more acre-feet of water per year, legislators say, and help ensure Central Valley farmers have a steadier and fuller supply.

But that assumes there will always be enough precipitation to fill Lake Shasta, which historically has not been the case. At that, environmentalists say it would be a drop in the bucket for the cost — at least $1.4 billion, per outdated estimates. And raising the 80-year-old dam risks flooding sacred Native American lands and harming local habitats.

With the House of Representatives in Republican control, and Bakersfield Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker, there could be more federal funding for a taller Shasta Dam if a spending package passes.

Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, who is sponsoring legislation to fund the project, said it was “regarded as the most affordable, cost efficient expansion of water infrastructure for the state of California on the table right now.”

California itself has opposed the plan, and in a letter to congressional leaders, dozens of environmental groups wrote that a taller dam would “harm Native American Tribes, salmon fishermen, and the environment, as well as violate state law.”

California law

The potential for new funding is the latest chapter in the project’s long, heavily-litigated history.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, part of the Interior Department which oversees federal water issues, first proposed raising the dam in the late 1970s, even though it appeared to be at odds with the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, a law that protects the free flow of certain rivers.

Support picked up under President Donald Trump — whose administration claimed the project would not break the law — only to fizzle under lawsuits from environmentalists and the state’s attorney general.

The project stalled after legal challenges forced water distributor Westlands Water District to withdraw in 2019.

Local groups are required to pay half of the cost under federal rules. Westlands, which serves farmers and rural communities in Fresno and Kings counties, agreed to do an environmental review for the project which would seemingly benefit agricultural producers there.

Then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had been the district’s lawyer and lobbyist.

Westlands agreed to pull out in a 2019 settlement with then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and environmentalists, who sued contending that the district violated state laws that ascertain the free flow of rivers with “extraordinary scenic, recreational, fishery, or wildlife values.”

Allison Febbo, Westlands’ new general manager who was not there at this time, said the district supports bolstered water infrastructure in California, but not by breaking any state laws. A Shasta Dam raise would need to address the concerns of various groups and stakeholders.

The California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects the McCloud River and its wild trout fishery, which could be affected by raising the Shasta Dam. The act prevented the state group from helping the Bureau.

Several years later, the Bureau is still without local aid.

“There have been no recent actions to accelerate or progress the project given the lack of funding to support the project and therefore no updated information has been developed,” Tara Jane Campbell Miranda, a spokeswoman for the agency, wrote in response to questions about the project.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, meant to stimulate public works projects, blocked federal funds from going to the Shasta Dam raise.

“This sticks in Mr. McCarthy’s craw and no doubt Secretary Bernhardt’s craw who was telling the adoring crowds in Fresno that they were about to pull this one off,” said Ron Stork, the senior policy advocate at Friends of the River, a California conservation group that opposes the dam raise.

Winnemem Wintu

When the Shasta Dam was built in the 1930s and 40s, the government took over Winnemem Wintu lands to make way for the reservoir. Chinook salmon, sacred to the tribe, were blocked from swimming upstream to the cool spawning grounds closer to Mount Shasta, endangering the species.

Chief Caleen Sisk’s grandmother and father were forced off their land on the McCloud River to make way for the reservoir. Restitution promised in a 1941 law never came.

“They came in with bulldozers and bulldozed over their homes to make them leave,” Sisk said. “And got nothing in return.”

Now Winnemem Wintu leaders fear that their last remaining cultural sites on the McCloud River would flood for longer periods of time if the dam were raised.

The Bureau agreed more lands would flood but asserted through a 2020 environmental review that it would happen only during peak water levels — the spring of wet years. Already the tribe, which the federal government does not recognize, has had to adapt its timing of cultural ceremonies at sacred spots that are only available in the dry seasons.

The Winnemem Wintu have been working for decades to bring salmon back to their breeding grounds and would like a passageway for the fish to swim upstream. Humans right now have to carry eggs to the McCloud River.

“Survival of the salmon is the same as the survival of the tribe,” Sisk said. Instead of raising the dam, Sisk said, the government should try to deepen the reservoir by removing sediment build up at the bottom.

The Trump administration contended that raising the dam would actually help salmon spawn in the Redding area. The Bureau said it would create a greater pool of cold water, which comes from the lower depths of the lake, that the salmon need to survive.

Environmentalists said the opposite — that restrictions on flushing water down the Sacramento River would harm salmon populations. The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2015 said the project wouldn’t help the fish, something Becerra pointed to in response to the Trump Bureau’s claims.

Central Valley drought

The Central Valley has suffered decades of drought. Farmers have had to fallow fields, deplete groundwater reserves and pay high prices for water deliveries that don’t even meet their needs.

Then severe floods this year damaged crop yields. The fear for many farmers in wet years like this one is that much-needed water has nowhere to go.

Lake Shasta feeds the Central Valley Project, also governed by the Bureau. The Central Valley Project is agricultural growers’ lifeblood. But in recent years, deliveries have fallen short — if they come at all. As recently as 2022, the Bureau was not able to send most Central Valley Project servicers any water. Reclamation had to cut supplies for some senior water rights holders during dry years too.

Legislators have compiled methods aimed at bolstering water storage and cutting through red tape, including raising the Shasta Dam.

In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, California Republicans begged the state to allow local partners to help with the dam raise despite the river law. The governor’s office has supported bolstering water infrastructure, but does not want to break state law in doing so.

“Raising Shasta Dam would improve water supply reliability for agricultural, municipal, industrial, and environmental uses, improve Sacramento River temperatures and water quality below the dam for salmon survival, increase the generation of hydroelectric power, and reduce the risk of flood damage,” the letter read.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, backs various water measures added to the 2024 spending bill designed for energy and water. The Shasta Dam raise and other California water measures were folded in via the Working to Advance Tangible and Effective Reforms for California Act, which was backed by all California Republicans.

As far as priorities go, said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Oroville, who represents Shasta County, “it’s a good thing when the speaker’s on your side.”