Let the Rivers Live

The eastern flank of the San Joaquin Valley is a panoramic display of man’s attempts to control nature. Of all the billions of gallons of water flowing out of the Sierra Nevada each spring and summer, hardly a drop reaches the valley without having been held behind a dam. Every major stream has been dammed at least once. Behind the dams, reservoirs snake back up the river branches toward the mountains. From one river divide to the next, the scene is duplicated with regularity.

There is Folsom Reservoir on the American, Camanche and Pardee on the Mokelumne, New Melones on the Stanislaus, New Don Pedro and Hetch Hetchy on the Tuolumne, Millerton on the San Joaquin, Pine Flat on the Kings, and dozens of others. To the south is Lake Isabella on the Kern.

The best and most economical dam and reservoir sites were picked early on, usually in the foothills just above where the rivers flowed into the valley. Later, dams were built further upstream, reaching into the white water of the higher canyons, seeking to develop even more water and hydro power for the valley farms.

Over time, working down from the Sierra crest, a growing network of national parks and wilderness areas provided protection for the headwaters of the rivers. Generally, wilderness designation did not disrupt irrigation and power plants, for those protected headwaters were too remote and costly for development.

But now, in the 1980s, the middle reaches of these rivers--usually running through U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land--have become the battleground between development and recreation. The fight for the Stanislaus began late and was lost to New Melones Reservoir. Portions of the Tuolumne have been saved. Now efforts are under way to incorporate other Sierra rivers into the national Wild and Scenic Rivers System, sometimes by the valley congressmen who also represent the water and power interests. These efforts should be supported.

The Times already has endorsed Wild and Scenic Rivers status for the Kern above Lake Isabella. The Kings, Merced and San Joaquin deserve similar protection. Support also is needed for legislation sponsored by Rep. Richard H. Lehman (D-Sanger) to prohibit new water development projects, or expansion of existing ones, within national parks. The Lehman bill, for instance, would forestall any attempt by the City of San Francisco to raise O’Shaughnessy Dam, which created Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park early in the century--inundating a valley comparable to Yosemite itself.

Of the wild-river bills, the most timely may be one, also sponsored by Lehman, to protect 92 miles of the upper Kings. The bill is being opposed by the Kings River Conservation District, which is spending $4.5 million to study the feasibility of constructing a 420-foot Rodgers Crossing Dam above Pine Flat Dam and Reservoir, also operated by the district. The U.S. Corps of Engineers made a similar study a decade ago and decided that the dam could not be justified economically.

“We cannot afford a dam at Rodgers Crossing economically, politically or environmentally,” Lehman has said.

The California Senate and Assembly have started the process of preserving some of the state’s remaining wild rivers with the passage of a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto). It would provide for a study of state wild-and-scenic-river status for portions of the East Carson and West Walker rivers, on the eastern side of the Sierra, and the McCloud River above Shasta Lake in Shasta County, where the City of Santa Clara has proposed a hydroelectric project. The bill deserves Gov. George Deukmejian’s signature. Too many California rivers have been stilled. Let the remaining wild ones live.