More federal dollars are going into a study about raising Shasta Dam. $40 million for the studies was included in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”. The last time officials took a serious look at the proposal’s cost was in 2014, when the project was estimated at $1.4 billion. In 2020 the Bureau of Reclamation released the final supplemental environmental impact statement for the project, saying more than 6,500 public comments were received and considered for the draft EIS. The Bureau also claimed that the revisions in the statement address issues threatening the project, including the effect on the McCloud River. That’s one of the points that the State of California used to win a challenge of the plan in federal court. The revised federal analysis in 2020 was written by a different set of biologists. The Winnemum Wintu, who lost most of their ancestral lands when the dam was built, would be underwater with the expansion of the lake. They also say the rising water would flood many uncapped mines from prior to the original dam construction, releasing untold amounts of toxins into the lake. The Bureau says that raising the height by 18.5 feet would increase the lake’s capacity by 634,000 acre-feet, or about 200 billion gallons of water.
– Steve Gibson