Last week, the California State Coastal Conservancy voted to authorize a grant award of up to $32 million of public funding to California American Water (CAW) for implementation of the San Clemente Dam Removal Project in Monterey County. This important vote brings the long-awaited plan for dam removal closer to fruition for the public/private partnership between the state and the water company.

With the funds approved, CAW plans to break ground by the end of September to remove the 106-foot-high concrete-arch San Clemente Dam. The $83 million project will help restore to health the Carmel River, which once supported a thriving steelhead run, and will help safeguard downstream communities along California’s central coast that are currently at risk if the dam fails.  As part of the partnership agreement, CAW will also donate over 900 acres of land adjacent to the Ventana Wilderness area in the Carmel Valley.

The project will provide tremendous environmental benefits, including removal of a significant barrier to the migration of steelhead trout to upstream spawning areas, as well as protection of critical wildlife habitat for species like the federally threatened California red-legged frog. The plan to demolish the aging dam also has support from the community as the best response to resolve earthquake safety issues determined by the state’s Division of Safety of Dams.

The largest ever dam removal project in California is moving forward because of an innovative public-private partnership between CAW and the State Coastal Conservancy, with the support of the National Marine Fisheries Service and more than two dozen regional, state and national conservation groups, elected officials and regulatory partners. The PCL Foundation has played a critical role in helping foster this partnership between local, state and federal agencies, environmental groups and businesses since the project’s inception.

“Hopefully, taking down the San Clemente Dam is just the first of many major removals throughout the state that will begin the process of restoring our rivers and streams back to health,” noted Bruce Reznik, Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League Foundation.

On Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown is expected to announce the preferred project alternative for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). Materials that were leaked last week show that the Governor plans to endorse a project that will put construction before science and politics before planning. Moreover, this project will put Californians on the tab for the largest water tunnel infrastructure project in history.

This proposal will allow the State to build a massive twin tunnel system to carry water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Central Valley farmland and cities. Only after the infrastructure is built will we get around to governance and operations. Overwhelming scientific consensus shows that fish in the Delta Ecosystem need more fresh water; yet this proposal could divert more water from the already-failing ecosystem that supports critical habitat and a multi-million dollar fishing industry. The most egregious assertion in the proposal is that water exporters (the people that make money from selling this water) have key control over hiring, budget, science program, and even a veto power over improvements to biological goals and objectives. Furthermore, the State continues to refuse to do a cost benefit analysis for this project that, if it moves forward, will cost taxpayers and water customers in the tens of billions of dollars!

This announcement will resurrect a new version of the once-rejected Peripheral Canal proposal that will reignite water wars and the North-South divide of Brown’s previous of term as governor.  There are a number of serious concerns with this new proposal, most of all the blatant defiance of  the legal obligation to develop a plan for the Delta that balances the co-equal goals of “providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem (CA Water Code §85054).”

Rally Set for Wednesday at Noon to Protest Delta Plan

Tomorrow (Wednesday), July 25th, join farmers, fishermen, environmentalists and consumer advocates to protest the Governor’s environmentally destructive and exorbitantly expensive project. The rally will begin at Noon at the California State Capitol west steps. For more information contact Evon Willhoff, Water Program Manager.