Auburn Dam

A lot of discussion has taken place on the subject of the auburn dam.

First off, one should be aware of the history of the Auburn Dam. One should also study the history of flooding in Sacramento to understand the extreme danger posed by the American River. People who claim to be “experts” will say that the Sacramento River poses the biggest threat to the city of Sacramento, but history says this is not true.

The Sacramento River has a major bypass called “The Yolo Bypass” which, in the event of extreme river levels, can have the water that might flood the city diverted to agricultural lands well above the city. The American river, on the other hand, passed directly through Sacramento from above. The levee at Sacramento State University constitutes a sharp right turn in the river. If this levee were to breach, icy cold water would immediately tear a hole through the levee and the river would tear its way directly into downtown Sacramento. The levees that protect Sacramento would become the walls of a bathtub holding water in and causing it to rise rapidly.

You may have heard that the dam is too expensive. A flood of Sacramento would easily exceed $100 Billion in damages, massive environmental destruction, and massive deaths.

What about the environment? Dams use solar energy and create electricity with ZERO greenhouse gasses. The sun raises water vapor into the sky above the ocean where it then floats over land, condenses, and falls as rain or snow. This water carries a huge amount of potential energy that can be cleanly converted to electricity to power electric cars, homes, and meet the needs of our growing population. By halting the dam, more greenhouse gasses are produced by coal and oil powered plants to generate the electricity that the people of California need.

What about the river itself? A dam at Auburn would render a large portion of the North and Middle forks of the American River underwater. These areas are extremely rugged with steep walls, poison oak and rattlesnake ridden areas. While hundreds of thousands of visitors a year use these canyons, millions could use the lake that would be created. This lake would extend well past Colfax on the North, and well past Georgetown on the Middle Fork. One could put a boat in at Auburn, and travel for hours in either direction, enjoying the cool breeze above the lake and viewing the wonderful shoreline. Fish populations would explode in the larger areas available to them and everything from landlocked salmon, to trout, bass, catfish and perch would be available for recreational fishing. Lakes are a great source of recreation and available to many more people than a rugged canyon.