California drought renews push for water storage projects

The drought that’s been desiccating California for the past four years has added new urgency to a decades-old debate about the best way to secure reliable water supplies for a growing population: new dams or efficiency measures. The drought that’s been desiccating California for the past four years has added new urgency to a decades-old debate about the best way to secure reliable water supplies for a growing population: new dams or efficiency measures. While the debate about how to better manage water continues, the drought is triggering more political momentum for several water storage projects in California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley. An enlargement of Shasta Dam, 10 miles from the town of Redding, has been discussed for over three decades, and it passed a major hurdle last week when the Bureau of Reclamation released its final feasibility study. The agency says that the most practical option would increase the dam’s height by 18.5 feet, adding capacity to store 634,000 more acre-feet of water for agricultural, municipal and industrial use. It would also increase the survival of struggling salmon populations in the upper Sacramento River by releasing more cold water stored behind the dam to improve temperatures in the Sacramento River during exceptionally critical years...more