In a previous diary about our local Republican candidate’s “energy policy,” called “Shale,” I pointed out that Tom McClintock was wrong about how much the cheapest electricity costs per kilowatt hour, saying it was 6 times cheaper than it actually is. Crazy Tom ignores the facts of energy production cost and finance. Crazy Tom has had plenty of time to correct this, but, being a NeoCon Republican, he won’t, and he keeps on repeating this. He changed the original version on his official website to an “error, not found” page, but he keeps on repeating the ridiculous stuff in public speeches. Recently, Crazy Tom put the text of a speech he did last weekend August 23 in Grass Valley up on his website. There he goes again, as Reagan would say.
Now let’s look at another part of it, his vision for the American River Canyon up in Auburn. Plug ‘n Flood it.
Confluence of the American River Canyon near Auburn. This would go underwater if the Dam was built downstream. photo by diary author
Of course, being Crazy Tom, he doesn’t even give the text a title that has anything to do with the subject.
http://blog.tommcclintock.com/…
And of course, being Crazy Tom, he might decide to disappear it. So hear’s another version off a Republican blog.
http://www.redcounty.com/place…
Here’s an excerpt from that McClintock speech about the Auburn Dam:
{{{ …..But that’s just part of the damage they’ve done to American energy independence. We Californians are already paying the highest electricity rates in the continental United States – and the utilities have just filed for another rate increase.The cleanest and cheapest possible way to produce electricity is from our dams. Hydroelectricity costs about 1 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour (compared to 28-cents for solar energy). At 1 ½ cents per kilowatt-hour, your average household electricity bill should come to about $90 – per year.
Meanwhile, water rationing now threatens our region although we have the most abundant water resources in the nation.
And yet, a short distance from here is the site of the Auburn Dam. The footing was carved for that dam more than 30 years ago, but it was suspended because of opposition from people like Charlie Brown.
The Auburn Dam would generate 800 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet – enough for nearly a million families. And it would conserve 2.3 million acre feet of water – enough for more than two million families. And all this at a time when we can’t guarantee enough electricity to keep your air conditioner running or enough water to keep your lawn green.
And yet Charlie Brown has vowed to block the development of this vital local resource that promises both cheap electricity and abundant water for the people of this region. }}}}
~~~~~~~ Tom McClintock the month before, on July 21, 2008, to the State Water Resources Board. Tom never got the memo that the Auburn Dam project is dead. http://www.tommcclintock.com/p…
{{{ This dam has been stalled for nearly 40 years by inexhaustible waves of litigation, political wrangling and changing regulations. It is not a lack of diligence that prevents completion of the Auburn Dam – it is rather an abundance of delay and dilatory tactics that your board can either cut through or add to. ……The practical effect of your decision will be to maintain the option of the Auburn Dam or to further delay and complicate its ultimate completion.
The Auburn Dam means 2.3 million acre feet of water storage at a time when Californians are already facing the prospect of growing droughts.
The Auburn Dam means 600 to 800 megawatts of clean and cheap electricity – enough for nearly a million households — at a time when Californians are already paying the highest electricity prices in the United States.
The Auburn Dam means 200 to 400 -year flood protection in a region whose levees are in perilous condition. }}}
___ end of Crazy Tom on the Auburn Dam. Sigh. No, Tom. The government engineers did studies. The American River does not have that much water in it. This is all wrong. You’re reading off of Doolittle’s old campaign brochures.
Notice how Crazy Tom has increased the potential Megawatt generating capacity of his fantasy dam in his Grass Valley Speech. This is because he doesn’t comprehend that hydro electrical generation is seasonal and will depend on how much WATER is available in the entire river system. In other words, if you have a dam rated as having the ability to make 600 megawatts of electricity, that’s the largest amount of electricity it can generate at the peak flow of water, the average amount made will be smaller. This does not deter Crazy Tom. The number gets bigger every speech. He’s at 800. How high will he go?
The problem with the design of Auburn Dam is that the water that the Auburn Daminites were planning on using to make zap juice was already being used downstream to generate power at Folsom Dam. This means that if you withhold a lot of water upstream at another dam you may not have enough water to release to keep the dam reservoir downstream full enough to generate electricity all the time. We have an erratic climate. Some years it is too wet, some years too dry. The climate trend long term seems to be heading towards drier. Oh, I forgot. Crazy Tom doesn’t believe in weather forecasting. Oh, well.
And who are the “Luddites” who had to tell Crazy Tom that the Auburn Dam is dead, again ? The Engineers? The Environmentalists? No. The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance ! http://www.calsport.org/7-25-0… Yes, even Bass Fishing Bubba has had enough of the Crazy Tom McClintock types who say DAM DAM DAM when they aren’t singing DRILL DRILL DRILL. The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) knows that No Water In the Rivers = No More Fish.
In a nutshell, CSPA testified the Bureau of Reclamation should give up the water rights to American River water for the Auburn Dam Project because they had not DONE anything with it since they got it in 1970. That’s because when the original Auburn Dam was designed, it was not known at that time that the Dam site was directly over a series of 4 Earthquake Faults called the Foothills Fault Complex. A 6.1 magnitude Earthquake in Northern California in 1975 originating near the massive Oroville Dam farther north, prompted another look at the Auburn site. Trying to build a dam over an earthquake fault means that the dam has to be redesigned to withstand….. earthquakes. This makes it very expensive.
We’re talking 4 million acre feet of water storage and diversion rights. Crazy Tom and John hardly know how to quit that.
the CA Sport Fishing Alliance:
{{{ The entire State Water Board will review the testimony and evidence and render a final decision. We have a great hearing record and I suspect the Board will have great difficultly in not revoking the Bureau’s water rights. Upon revocation, that water will revert to the state and other applicants can apply for it. However, any new water rights granted would have to consider the present degradation of fisheries and water quality and be conditioned on the protection of the public trust. }}}
OMG! What is happening to the water! Well, back in 1999, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Placer County Water Agency started to plan a permanent water intake pumping station on the Middle fork of the American River just 150 feet upstream of the old Auburn Dam site. http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EP… The reason they wanted to do this was that there was a temporary pump to suck water out of the river, but they had to move the thing UP and DOWN every single spring and fall because of the winter rainy season, and this cost money, up to a MILLION DOLLARS annually, and it was stupid.
This year, in March 2008, 9 years after wishing and 4 years after starting building, they finally got the the Permanent Pump Station completed so they can permanently suck water out of the river as needed…. what a concept. (Auburn Journal, March 11, 2008, Placer County declares American River pump station complete)
{{{ The pump station’s completion is considered by the agency as restoration of a “missing link” in its water delivery system. The agency’s previous pump station was removed more than 30 years ago when the federal government planned to build the Auburn dam.The new facility will allow the Placer County Water Agency to pump up to 35,500 acre-feet of water a year to growing western Placer County. }}}
In other words, the pump sucks water out of the American River in Auburn, before it flows into Folsom Lake reservoir, where the city of Folsom also uses river water. Western Placer County has had growth. El Dorado county has had growth. Sacramento County has had growth. The county supervisors of all areas push growth. They’re all using river water to drink and irrigate. This is what the newly restored river channel and pump area look like:
The American River back in its channel as it passes thru the old Auburn Dam footings site, with its new water intake station and raft/kayak bypass photo by author
http://auburnjournal.com/detai…
Now, who was at the ceremony? Ardent Auburn Dam advocate and downstream levee maintenance funding slacker Republican Representative John Doolittle, current Congressperson for CA- 04. 5/28/08 Auburn Journal, “Doolittle, restored river get star treatment at pump plant dedication”
{{{ The $75 million project, a 13-year effort led by the (Placer County Water) agency and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, provides a reliable, year-round water flow of up to 64.5 million gallons a day for western Placer County.A river restoration component built into the project has opened a stretch of the river from the confluence to the upstream reaches of Folsom reservoir that has been closed to the general public since Auburn dam construction was taking place in the 1970s. …….
Doolittle urged a crowd of 150 sprinkled with local elected officials to aggressively fight to maintain water rights for an Auburn dam. He said that the dam will be built – after a catastrophic flood occurs in the Sacramento area.
“The time will come,” Doolittle said. “And if we don’t have the water rights, we’re dead.” }}}
So it’s not like the Republicans don’t KNOW that the Auburn Dam Is Dead. They just exist in a parallel universe away from the rest of us. But the Baton Has Been Passed. Doolittle used the Dead Dam to campaign. McClintock uses the Dead Dam to Campaign. Think about this. They wish the state capitol of Sacramento to suffer a Katrina type flood event. Then their real estate developer friends can finally get lakeside property. I’ve heard Doolittle repeat this before in person, so it didn’t shock me.
Now, from the front page of Thursday’s Sacramento Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/stor…
“Folsom Mandates Tough Water Saving Rules”
{{{ Folsom on Wednesday ordered the Sacramento region’s toughest water conservation yet to deal with a worsening drought: mandatory rules to cut water use by 20 percent.
The measures are the most drastic Folsom has adopted since at least the last statewide drought, in the early 1990s, and perhaps even longer. And they reflect a growing sense that the drought now gripping California will get much worse before it eases.
Folsom has about 19,500 customers and is entirely dependent on water stored in Folsom Lake. On July 25, city officials learned that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would cut deliveries from the shrinking lake by 25 percent.The state Department of Water Resources previously indicated that even normal weather this winter will not completely refill California reservoirs, meaning prudence may be needed for some time.
“Without a wet winter, we’ll be seeing a lot more of this next year and more stringent conditions,” Woodling said.
There’s little reason, so far, to expect relief this winter.
Long-range predictions by the National Weather Service, based on computer modeling, show no evidence of a wet winter. There also is no suggestion of either El Niño or La Niña conditions, which often bring drenching rains.
“It looks like the prognosticators are afraid to touch California right now,” said Kelly Redmond, deputy director of the weather service’s Western Regional Climate Center in Reno. “It’s too darn difficult.”
Folsom Lake held 308,000 acre-feet on Wednesday. That’s about 30 percent of capacity and about half of the historical average for August.
Over the past month, the lake has lost about 45,000 acre-feet and dropped in elevation by 7 feet due to demand.
Folsom buys its water – about 27,000 acre-feet per year – from the Bureau of Reclamation via Folsom Lake. The city learned in July it would be unable to tap into an additional 3,000 acre-feet from the lake.
Folsom has the second-greatest per capita water consumption in the capital region: 381 gallons per day. That’s more than double the statewide per capita average of 164 gallons per day.}}}
•••• summary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is one of the reasons the residents of Folsom are worried about people like Tom McClintock. They depend on Folsom Dam Lake for their drinking and irrigation water. Yet Crazy Tom is going around saying that we should all pretend a multi- billion dollar dam upstream not only would not cost anything and not increase any statewide or local tax obligation, but it would be able to provide water for 2 million more families. Let’s say that they are 4 person families, 2 adults and 2 kids, even tho the area demographic average is about 3 people per family unit. So that would be 8 million more people.
Yet right now, after 2 years of winters where the area got 14″ of rain, and then 20″ of rain, during the wet seasons, the Folsom Dam Lake, located downstream of Crazy Tom’s fantasy hydro project, is so low already before September that they are having to restrict water usage for the towns depending on it.
Water for the City of Folsom: Folsom Lake had 308,000 acre feet of water left in it this week. When it’s full, it holds about a million acre- feet. An acre foot is what it sounds like- an acre of land covered by a foot of water. An acre is roughly the size of a foothball field.
19,500 customers
27,000 acre feet per year
1.38 acre feet per unit per year
___
Crazy Tom’s World: Add 8 million customers and a Dam over the earthquake faults upstream of Folsom.
2,300,000 acre feet
2,000,000 more “families”
1.15 acre feet per family unit per year
Dude, that’s 7.46 times as much WATER THAN IS IN THE CURRENT LAKE DOWNSTREAM IN LATE SUMMER DURING A DRY YEAR. Where Are You Planning To FInd The Water ?
Crazy Tom’s version of Auburn Dam Reservoir is twice as big as Folsom Dam’s Resevoir ! But he forgets the part about leaving some of the water in the river so there is a river ! And that river flows down the mountain and into the next dam reservoir and then onwards to the next…. until it meets and joins the Sacramento River in town.
The other fact that Tom McClintock completely ignores is that his would be predecessor, John Doolittle, (R, Chevron, Not Yet Indicted ) commissioned a 1 million dollar Bureau of Reclamation study of the feasibility of the Auburn Dam project before the 2006 election. Then he deliberately delayed the study being released until after the election. The reason was that the study by the Bureau of Rec and the Army Corps of Engineers said the same thing : The Auburn Dam, as designed in the late 1970’s, does not have enough river available consistently to be as large a project as some people wish for, if they want to keep enough water in Folsom Resevoir to run that project also. One would be building a very expensive impoundment project that would not hold back that much water much of the year, because they’d have to drain it down to run the other Lake.
This is the short version of the technical report, which I have read. It is available from the Bureau of Reclamation. Link to USBR with downloadable documents: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/ccao/do…
In 2006 dollars, an Auburn Dam was going to cost about 10 billion dollars. This is because the dam site is complicated. The advocates never mention that the 1970’s design which had to replace the unworkable 1960’s design is also obsolete. The thing would have to be re engineered again because of changes in how hydrology(water) science is applied. No matter how you finance this, it does not translate into a 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, or $7.50 a month electric bills.
January 31 2007 Auburn Journal “Dam Costs Skyrocket” http://www.auburnjournal.com/d…
The reason is simple.
{{{ The total includes $2.09 billion for the actual concrete dam, $578 million for the power plant, $76 million for electric power transmission and a substation, $469 million for highway and road relocation, $79 million for site preparation and $904 million for contingencies. At the same time, the report says new land purchases above what has already been bought would amount to $2.3 billion. Mitigation costs would add another $1.5 billion to the cost of the dam.
/snip
While the dam’s initial 1963 cost-benefit analysis estimated hydroelectric power (the electricity) would be worth about $6.5 million a year, the new study indicates that it would be worth between $53 million and $113 million. All estimates are in 2006 dollars. }}}
Imagine that one totally ignored the cost of the dam, left it out, and spent only spent 1.6 billion for a power generating plant. (Pretend the water just comes from somewhere) Say it was to be paid off in 30 years for a total cost of 3.2 billion dollars. Now, sell the electricity produced by this (ignoring the fact that you don’t really have enough water year round to generate those 800 Megawatts) at the incredibly underpriced 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, (when the real cost per kwatt hour now is about 8 to 10 cents an hour for the cheapest electricity) and figure out how much some taxpayer is going to get stuck financing this welfare project for the Republican Party.
Ow, I made somebody’s head hurt there, didn’t I ?
Well, yes, but this is how the Republicans do this. About a 100 million in revenues a year of electricity, multiplied times 30 years, = 3 billion, just completely ignore the price of the dam and the price you’re selling the electricity for and the numbers … sorta work. Just forget about the other 14 billion. It doesn’t count. Dams pay for themselves. Just like the Iraq War. Right ?
The other lie that I wanted to point out about this is Crazy Tom’s assertion that having another Big Dam upstream therefore “protects” the levees downstream. This ignores the fact that the river levees of any area must be constantly maintained, and that some sort of government authority must tax somebody and then appropriate the money to the Army Corps of Engineers to do the work. Levees are under constant water wear in the winter rainy season, because the reservoirs upstream must release water flows. The current Republican Congressperson of CA- 04, John Doolittle, has been in a very long battle with the city of Sacramento over levee maintenance funding, refusing to seek to appropriate funds for it unless it also included funds for restarting the construction of his pet project, the Auburn Dam Boondoggle. Folsom Dam has also very badly needed a new spillway (for emergency overflow) for a very long time. In 2007 the USBR approved the environmental review of the plans, and finally, in January of this year, work began on Folsom Dam to make it better able to function during a bad winter storm. In 2006 Gov. Schwarzenneger met with President Bush, attempting to get a federal disaster declaration and more federal funds for levees, and to put it bluntly, the state was rebuffed. http://gov.ca.gov/press-releas… A bond was put on the ballot and passed that November to fund flood control measures. Levee repairs to the ones lining the riverbanks of Sacramento are still ongoing, and the needed upgrades to bring Sacramento’s Natomas basin area up to 100 year level flood protection may be done by the year 2011.
We should be asking ourselves why anyone in California would want to send Tom McClintock to Congress to replace John Doolittle, if he’s going to be just as foolish to put the state capital at risk again just to get some campaign money from real estate speculators. This Auburn Dam project has been dead a long time. The area is now used for recreation. The canyon trees give us oxygen to breathe. The river fills the other lake. Crazy Tom just didn’t get the message.