Shelving of Pamo Dam Project Urged : Water Officials Want Time to Study Alternatives; Foes Buoyed

Faced with stiff opposition from environmentalists and the prospect of a drawn-out regulatory battle, San Diego County water officials have recommended that plans for the Pamo Dam be shelved while alternatives are studied.

The proposal was welcomed by opponents, but they cautioned that the fight is not over.

In a report that will be reviewed Thursday by the San Diego County Water Authority, the agency’s general manager suggests that efforts to acquire a federal permit to build the $86-million dam be suspended. Instead, the authority should investigate alternative projects that could be built sooner to provide the county’s booming northern reaches with a vitally needed source of emergency water, Lester Snow, the agency’s top administrator, said Tuesday.

Project Not Dead, Just on Hold

Snow emphasized that agency officials do not consider the Pamo Dam project dead but want to “develop better information” to plot “the best course of action for the Water Authority.”

“All we’re doing right now is trying to determine the best way to get emergency storage in the shortest period of time,” Snow said. “We’re looking at Pamo and all the alternatives and trying to figure out which project can be completed soonest.”

Emily Durbin, a Sierra Club leader and prime opponent of the dam, applauded the effort.

“I’m very pleased that the Water Authority is on the right track at last and looking for a timely way to meet the emergency storage needs in that area. I’m sure that any other approach besides Pamo Dam will prove less damaging to the environment.”

San Diego City Councilman Bruce Henderson said he is pleased by the new tack the Water Authority appears to be taking.

“To me, it sounds like the death knell for Pamo,” said Henderson, a proponent of water recycling. “I think, once you shelve Pamo, it will be a long time before it will ever be brought up again.”

The water agency’s proposal to pull back on the project, which has run up planning and design costs of about $5 million, comes in the midst of a fight between two federal agencies over Pamo Dam and growing opposition from environmentalists like Durbin.

Although the Army Corps of Engineers agreed last year to issue a key construction permit, the Environmental Protection Agency in November announced it would reject the deal unless significant changes were made or proof was provided that the dam would not harm the environment.

Rare Stream-Side Habitat

The 264-foot-high concrete dam would flood 1,800 acres in Pamo Valley, a lush pocket near Ramona treasured by environmentalists for its rare stream-side habitat and isolation.

Durbin said she would urge the EPA to press ahead with efforts to dash any chances for the dam to be built.

“The EPA should proceed to resolve this issue once and for all,” she said. “The issue should be settled so we can get on with efforts to preserve the valley as parkland or in some other protected status for ourselves and future generations.”

But one EPA official said it remains unclear whether the agency will be able to move forward if San Diego water officials suspend attempts to get the federal permit.

“If there is no permit, then we probably can’t do anything,” said Carrie Frieber, a spokeswoman for the EPA. “Until we know the specifics of what the Water Authority has in mind, it remains up in the air.”

Snow said the proposal to consider veering away from the project stems primarily from the prospect of a long, drawn-out battle and the threat of lawsuits from environmentalist groups.

“I certainly don’t look at this as an about-face,” Snow said. “There has been this perception that the Water Authority has been a proponent of Pamo. But what people have lost sight of is that the Water Authority has simply been a proponent of emergency storage, period.”

If given the go-ahead by the agency’s directors, the Water Authority staff will investigate a variety of alternatives, Snow said.

“We’re not going to just stick simply to projects we’ve evaluated in the past,” he said. “We plan to take a genuine look at how best to meet the needs of the community.”

Officials applied for a federal permit to build the dam in November, 1984, heralding it as an important element to provide North County residents with a ready source of emergency water.

For Dry Years Only

The proposed 130,000-acre-foot reservoir created by damming Santa Ysabel Creek would be used strictly during dry years or in case an earthquake severed the aqueducts that import water to San Diego County, they said.

In November, 1984, voters approved revenue bonds for the project 55% to 45%.

Since then, however, environmental opposition ballooned. Critics suggested that the Water Authority failed to seriously consider less ecologically destructive alternatives to the dam, such as expanding San Vicente Dam to increase its capacity or pumping imported water into underground aquifers for storage.

Opponents also charged that the project was being pushed to help accommodate new growth in the region, an allegation that Water Authority officials have vigorously denied.

Officials with the EPA said the Water Authority’s plans to compensate for acreage destroyed by re-creating similar habitat elsewhere were inadequate. Such techniques are mostly untested and have rarely been attempted on the scale of that proposed for the Pamo Dam project.

Among the wildlife that would be threatened by the project is the least Bell’s vireo, a small gray songbird that is on the federal endangered species list. Water officials promised to release water from the reservoir to maintain habitat for the bird downstream in the San Pasqual Valley.