The ReLicensing of the Oroville Dam and attached facilities

By Bill Connelly

Closed boat launch by the Oroville Dam due to the water being too low. The Oroville Reservoir is a "surge pond" for the State's water needs.

The Fish Ladder is the dead end for the Salmon in lower Oroville, limiting their natural range by hundreds of miles.

The first efforts for a settlement by various environmental and government agencies started over eight years ago. The Alternative Relicensing Program was and is an effort by the California Department of Water and the Water Contractors of California to get a cheap deal – how cheap none of us who attended the meetings of the Alternative Relicensing Settlement meetings really understood, until now.

The process of the Oroville facility’s relicensing was very slanted towards paid government bureaucrats. This really accomplished little in real mitigation towards the offset of the facility impacts on different local species. The bureaucrats showed up, hired scientists who proposed mitigations and solutions, but in the end they ignored most solutions and mitigations, inked the proposed DWR deal and went home to consult anther day...

A short example would be the Native Feather River Drainage Salmon and Steelhead.

The salmon were talked about, studied a bunch, and recommendations were made, but when the really effective costly fixes were brought forth, no substantial actions were pursued.

There was no large expansion of the Oroville Fish Hatchery. Not all salmon are spawned that make it to the fish hatchery as they run out of room. The spawning canals are shut off. Offsite spawning or artificial spawning beds would also allow for more production and protection of spring run salmon.

One simple concept was the building of salmon spawning channels in the wild life area southwest of Oroville along the Feather River. By using cold water diverted through or around the After Bay by canal, ditch or pipe the artificially watered but natural graveled type of spawning canals would preserve the early spring run and native salmon. A simple diversion net across the river would guide spring run fish into such a canal. Once enough are diverted the net is taken down the canal mouth blocked keeping in the fish and allowing the water to flow. Such an alternative was pursued and there was a visit by upper management California Fish and Game officials who said this idea could work if there was political will and money. Ignoring this solution DWR found it was cheaper to pay the Rice Farmers for cold water damage to rice and force cold water through the After Bay. No long term costs such as off river spawning beds or species protections are to be pursued.

In the end when the two hundred million dollars spent on the relicensing dried up the paid consultants and government workers signed off less than appropriate species mitigations and went on to the next project. Only the County of Butte has stayed the course fighting for ongoing mitigations appropriate to impacts.

The After Bay will be my next article about species mitigation: we will explore warm water recreation, water fluctuations, water fowl, and off site mitigations.

Bill Connelly is Butte County District 1 Supervisor.

From the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Environmental News.