The Valley Political Machine Gears Up to Raise Shasta Dam (They’re Back)
Upper McCloud River Big Springs, one of the many cathedrals of nature on the McCloud River. Credit: Tracey Diaz
Well, it didn’t take them long. The fact that the McCloud River has been protected by the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act since 1989 has long rankled the Central Valley water buffalos.
Just to demonstrate that, on February 9, six pages worth of the who’s-who from Central Valley irrigated agriculture penned a short letter(1) asking the President of the United States to deliver their long-sought prize of expanding Shasta Reservoir—without any mention that part of the protected McCloud River would lie under the expanded reservoir.
The letter outlines a simple path: (a) sign the Record of Decision (ROD) completing the EIS process for the proposed Shasta Dam raise and (b) start spending the billion dollars of free-to-them taxpayer money provided for federal dam and canal projects in the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) for the federal 2025–2026 fiscal year—but specifically on the Shasta Dam raise.
Signing the ROD for a Supplemental EIS for the Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation (dam raise) was left undone in the apparently unexpected departure of the President’s first administration back in 2020–2021. Apparently also not expecting a single-term presidency the BidenHarris administration likewise failed to close off the EIS with a ROD declaring the obvious: the project was illegal and terminating the EIS process.(2)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, official portrait.
Now with the opportunity to affirm the delusional conclusions of their 2020 Supplemental FEIS, and some taxpayer money burning a hole in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation/Department of the Interior’s pocket, the Trump Administration could start to move to construction rather quickly — just as the agricultural leaders’ letter recommends.
However, the project still violates the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act. It’s illegal to construct, and state agencies cannot issue the permits required under state and federal law.
Critical to enforcing that law will be the state of California and its attorney general, Rob Bonta, as well as the lawyers representing Friends of the River and its allies. (Yes, that means legal horsepower and the resources to keep our attorneys working against the almost unlimited legal resources of the Departments of the Interior and Justice. Hopefully, you can help.)
