University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Innovation in Western Water Law and Management (Summer Conference, June 5-7) 1991 6-7-1991 Dam Fights and Water Policy in California: 1969-1989 Harrison C. Dunning Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/innovation-in-western-water-law- and-management Part of the Administrative Law Commons, Courts Commons, Environmental Health and Protection Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, Hydrology Commons, Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons, Litigation Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons, Natural Resources Law Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Public Policy Commons, State and Local Government Law Commons, Water Law Commons, and the Water Resource Management Commons Citation Information Dunning, Harrison C., "Dam Fights and Water Policy in California: 1969-1989" (1991). Innovation in Western Water Law and Management (Summer Conference, June 5-7). https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/innovation-in-western-water-law-and-management/19 Reproduced with permission of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment (formerly the Natural Resources Law Center) at the University of Colorado Law School. Harrison C. Dunning, Dam Fights and Water Policy in California: 1969-1989, in INNOVATION IN WESTERN WATER LAW AND MANAGEMENT (Natural Res. Law Ctr., Univ. of Colo. Sch. of Law, 1991). Also includes: Judge Terrence M. Finney’s decisions in Mono Lake Water Rights Cases, and The American River Decision: Balancing Instream Protection with Other Competing Beneficial Uses by Stuart L. Somach. Reproduced with permission of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment (formerly the Natural Resources Law Center) at the University of Colorado Law School. DAM FIGHTS AND WATER POLICY IN CALIFORNIA: 1969-1989 also Judge Terrence M. Finney's decision in Mono • Lake Water Rights Cases The American River Decision: Balancing Instream Protection with Other Competing Beneficial Uses by Stuart L. Somach Harrison C. Dunning University of California - Davis School of Law Davis, California INNOVATION IN WESTERN WATER LAW AND MANAGEMENT Natural Resources Law Center University of Colorado School of Law Boulder, Colorado June 5-7, 1991 Copyright 1990 by the Journal of the West, Inc., 1531 Yuma, Manhattan, K5 66502, and reprinted with permission. No additional copies may be made without express permission of the author and of the editor of the Journal of the West. 14 JOURNAL of the \VEST Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was flooded to provide a water supply for San Fran- cisco. (Courtesy of the California State Library) Dam Fights and Water Policy in California: 1969-1989 Harrison C. Dunning WATER policy in California has been through many undoubtedly was that over San Francisco's project in the transitions since the prior-appropriation doctrine was first Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park. That developed in the mid-nineteenth century. The rise of valley was regarded by many, foremost among them John irrigated agriculture, the growth of coastal cities with their Muir, as one of the jewels of the Sierra Nevada, compara- demands for water-storage projects, and the rapid increase ble in beauty to Yosemite Valley itself. Muir and the still- in water-related outdoor recreation since World War II young Sierra Club fought hard to preserve Hetch Hetchy have all led to shifts in emphasis and, sometimes, to very Valley from the water project, but to no avail. Los Angeles dramatic changes in legal doctrine within the state. In had built its Owens Valley project, other urban areas in many instances the evolution has been provoked by a California would in the near future be enjoying water from highly publicized controversy over the proposed construc- the Mokelumne River and the Colorado River, and San tion or the operation of a dam or related facilities. These Francisco's plans for the Tuolumne River could not be dam fights have served to highlight the underlying clash in defeated by Muir. There was an important dam fight. one values regarding the best use of water and to give focus and which had a major impact on national-park policy) But it life to what otherwise might have remained rather abstract did not lead to any significant change in water policy in the policy debates. state. In this century California's most famous dam fight Dam fights in California in the last 20 years. however. Dunning: Ohm Fights and Muer Policy 1,1 California: 1969-1989 (Th have had very different outcomes. Some major water ; Rivers of development proposals have been defeated altogether and I I Northern Cal& )))) in L'T are today no longer live possibilities. Even more impor- tant. perhaps, is the way some of the dam fights have led to (r- CI\ rots / I a distinctively more preservationist and environmentally / I Phu' Ms on Aen•Isis sensitive water policy. In that regard, none has been more • I — Les tta. WOO , 500X0 MOW important than the dispute over Dos Rios. 0300.10*2.000,1%0 I7.$00.0 as =WPM - 34,10Pho VOW* I Dos Rios: Development of a California / I Van Ws 1.01:01X0 "Wild and Scenic" RiverSystem • Dos Rios was a large dam and reservoir proposed for the r4": Middle Fork of the upper Eel River on California's north coast. It would have been a major source of water supply 7.1 I for the State Water Project, with a storage capacity of over • N. seven million acre-feet of water. To understand its signifi- (It %, cance, one must understand something of the history of state involvement in water development in California. \ During the early decades of the twentieth century, the major players in California water development were water districts and cities. A multitude of districts developed the rivers of the Sierra Nevada as sources of irrigation water wean°, mar supply, while cities and special districts like the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) and the Metro- 7 politan Water District of Southern California (MWD) brought water hundreds of miles m their urban service areas. Engineers for the state of California were on the sidelines, but they were busy making plans to emulate the districts and the cities by developing projects in the Sacramento Valley to supply water to agricultural areas in Rivers of Northern California. (Courtesy of the Johns Hopkins Univer the San Joaquin Valley to the south. sity Press. Published for Resources for the Future) These plans for a major state water project, however. The Dos Rios site on the upper Eel River. (Courtesy of the Cali- fornia Department of Water Re- sources) 16 JOURNAL of the WEST The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. showing the route for the proposed Peripheral Canal, defeated by the California electorate in 1982. (Courte- w of the California Department of Wa- ter Resources) .INTAKE STRUCTURE( AND FISHSCREEN OOD A PUMPING! p PI.ANT (Amu 1 ‘‘), - SECANAL RIO VISTA -SYCAMORE 4 CANAL LODI sag csNAL FOUNT SMILE AL ANTIOCH Carlo STOCKTON CONTRA COSTA CANAL INTAKC RELOCATION SOUTH AAAAA *ATER Was ITT PCN I AAAAAA CANAL IN•ROv(METrt FACILITIES 3 IM • PERIPHERAL CANAL O CIO • PERI PHERAL CANAL •11 RELEASE FACILITY. STAGE Ai Rana FACILITY. STAGES SERVICE ARIA -MINN mass PROTECTION FACILITIES MY* AAAAAAA A Mann" TRACY O PUNPING AAAAA •06 • co LLLLL STRUCTURE or cps met many frustrations. The fact that a state water project The principal supply features of the state project, initially would bring with it public power caused serious political widely known as the Feather River Project but now termed problems in the 1920s. Although these were overcome the State Water Project (SWP), paralleled much of the during the Great Depression, by then state officials had CVP: a major impoundment facility in the Sacramento • concluded they would not be successful in selling the Valley, this one on the Feather River near Oroville; use of bonds necessary to finance a state water project. As a river channels to convey released water to the Sacramento- consequence, the state's Central Valley Project (CVP) was San Joaquin Delta; pumps to lift water from the Delta into turned over to the federal government in 1935. Ultimately an aqueduct heading south; and an off-stream storage it was constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, reservoir in the San Joaquin Valley, to be shared with the which impounded water not only at Shasta Dam on the CV?. California's legislature endorsed these initial fea- upper Sacramento River, but also later at Trinity Dam on tures of the SWP in 1959, and with approval by the people the Trinity River on the north coast. That water is brought of the financing in 1960, construction of the project got by tunnel eastward to the Sacramento River, so as to join underway. the Shasta Darn water, most of which is exported to the San By 1964 the California Department of Water Resources Joaquin Valley. (DWR), which had been created in 1956 to design, build, After World War H, with the state economy recovered and operate the SWP, decided that the first additional and with many large landowners restive over restrictions supply facility for the SWP should be on the north coast. in federal reclamation law designed to ensure that feder- Just as the CVP had gone to the Trinity River, the SWP ally developed water be limited to family farm enterprises, would go to the Eel River, where there had been serious state officials again developed plans for a water project. flood problems which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Dunning: Dam Fights and Water Policy in California: 1969-1989 17 The south shore of Mono Lake. (Cour- tesy of Ray Borton) The principal aqueducts which supply Southern California.