Shasta Dam and Sinking Canals in the News
Shasta Dam and its reservoir, with a large bathtub ring, 2015. Credit: CA Dept. of Water Resources
Well, it certainly helps to have friends in high places. California’s most powerful agricultural power players continually invest their time and treasure in our nation’s capital. Why? Well, it pays off.
They recently scored 1 billion dollars in the “one big, beautiful (bad) bill” for storage and canal projects in states served by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. (Dramatically, the bill was signed on Independence Day 2025). The Secretary of the Interior would make the spending decisions for these billion dollars in federal pocket change. That, of course, (1) pits the state of California’s water power players versus those in the other sixteen Reclamation-served states and (2) sets up a conflict over the breakdown of spending for new dams and expanded reservoirs versus canal projects.
The wait was a long one, no doubt preceded by some tense meetings in DC, but on Saint Patrick's Day 2026, the Secretary allocated $889 million, apparently leaving a little for later.
California does have the biggest and baddest water districts, so California won gold and silver in the interstate competition, taking home $540 million. The more interesting question was whether the Secretary would try to begin construction on the Shasta Dam raise, or to even more heavily subsidize the reconstruction of the big canals in the San Joaquin Valley that are sinking from groundwater mining.
The winner: mostly the water districts faced with federal canal reconstruction bills. The usual Central Valley federal canal projects would take home a cool half billion dollars without the customary obligation to (over the years) pay back the nation’s taxpayers. Losing here, though, was a long shot in the race for the free cash. The State Water Project contractors also got to take advantage of the cash that the Secretary set aside for repairing the California Aqueduct section that also served federal water contractors (the San Luis Canal).
Caption: McCloud River. Credit: CA Dept. of Water Resources
But what about expanding Shasta Reservoir and drowning more of the McCloud River protected by the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act? No doubt trying to placate the most powerful supplicants, the Secretary allocated another $40 million for “planning and preconstruction activities associated with raising Shasta Dam.”
That’s a very generous amount for a dam that Reclamation has been “studying” for years and for which it has prepared two environmental impact statements, but we really don’t know what design roadblocks they are facing.
In the meantime, the Shasta reservoir expansion lobbying crowd probably knows where more subsidies can be found. Let’s hope that the voices for the integrity of California’s premier river protection law are more powerful.
Further reading:
March 2026 letter from FOR and 49 other organizations asking Newsom to oppose Trump efforts to raise Shasta Dam.
