Fear of Floods in Sacramento May Resurrect Auburn Dam : Environment: The American River project, scaled back from its 1965 design, is envisioned as protection for downriver communities. But foes say it is unneeded and fear it would cause irreparable environmental damage.

Just outside town, the steep walls of the American River canyon are stripped to bedrock. Gaping holes in the earth are plugged with tons of concrete. The river, diverted from its natural course, flows beneath it all through a tunnel half a mile long.

This is the massive foundation of the Auburn Dam, completed 13 years ago and left behind in defeat as an intended monument to the rising power of the environmental movement.

Over time, tall poplar and willow trees have grown out of crevices in the foundation as nature strives to reclaim the scarred terrain. But the Auburn Dam refuses to die.

Some 27 years after the project was first authorized by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a proposal for a new dam has again placed the rugged canyon at the center of California’s never-ending battle over water and the environment.

“I don’t believe the question is if there is going to be a dam,” said Michael Schaefer, a Bureau of Reclamation engineer assigned to the Auburn Dam project for the past 25 years. “I believe the question is when and how big the dam will be.”

The original concept was for a 700-foot-high multipurpose water storage dam. Now, a powerful alliance of Sacramento Valley interests is pushing Congress to approve a more modest dam that would protect communities downstream from catastrophic flooding.

Unlike earlier designs, the latest Auburn Dam would hold water only in times of heavy rainfall, periodically overflowing as much as 34 miles of the American River’s middle and north forks.

Proponents, who liken the $698-million dam to a bucket with a hole in it, say its construction is essential to saving homes in the Sacramento flood plain from floodwaters that could rise to 20 feet.

But environmentalists contend the 425-foot-high dam is unnecessary for flood control and would cause irreparable harm to the pristine river canyon, one of the state’s most popular spots for white-water rafting.

Conservationists also worry that the project would resurrect plans for the original Auburn Dam, with the flood-control barrier merely serving as a first story for a massive structure that would permanently flood 49 miles of river canyon.

“I call it a $700-million steppingstone to a big Auburn Dam,” said Friends of the River activist Charles Casey as he looked out on the spectacular canyon on the north fork of the river that would be flooded.

As a child, Casey attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the big dams masterminded by his grandfather, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr. Now Casey fights against such projects. “In California, where we have built more than 1,000 dams of different sizes, this river represents the quality of life we need to protect,” he said.

The Auburn Dam was originally authorized in 1965 as part of the vast federal water project that helped transform California into the nation’s most populous state. It was planned as a multipurpose dam that would provide water for farms and cities, electricity and a recreational lake, as well as flood protection for the Sacramento Valley.

But in 1975, in the middle of construction, an earthquake struck in the north near the Oroville Dam, calling into question the safety of dams in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

As it happened, a portion of the Auburn Dam was to be built on a small earthquake fault. The fault line is visible today, a white stripe of quartz running through the gray bedrock of the foundation.

Federal engineers demonstrated that the fault was inactive, but environmentalists seized on the issue--and the existence of active faults nearby--to win a delay in further funding. In one of the last acts of the Jimmy Carter Administration, Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus ruled that the dam could be safely built but called for new studies on the environmental effects.

In another blow to the project, President Ronald Reagan changed the way the government financed such projects. No longer would the federal government pay for dams to provide water and power; federal money would be available only for flood-control projects.

To this day, the Auburn Dam remains a federally authorized project but with no money to fund it. On the rim of the canyon above the site sits the “Auburn Construction Office,” where employees of the Bureau of Reclamation await the day they will be directed to resume construction.

Halting the Auburn Dam was an important symbol for the environmental movement of the 1970s. While other wild rivers were dammed and canyons flooded, the north and middle forks of the American River remain largely untouched, attracting some 500,000 visitors a year.

In 1986, a major storm sent floodwaters surging down the river. The swollen river burst through a temporary 265-foot-high cofferdam that had been built at Auburn to aid in construction, washing tons of debris downstream.

Farther down, the water cascaded over the dam at Folsom Lake and rose high on the American River levees that guard Sacramento. To the north, the storm broke through levees on the Sacramento River and flooded dozens of homes in the town of Linda, raising the fear of a major flood in Sacramento.

Afterward, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the Sacramento region faced a much higher flood danger than it previously believed. Most property owners in the city were suddenly required to buy flood insurance. The flood hazard also presented a major obstacle to developers seeking to build on 48,000 acres of farmland north of downtown in a natural bathtub known as Natomas.

The Corps of Engineers and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, an association of local governments, began advocating a small-scale Auburn Dam. Without such a project, the local agency argues, 300,000 residents of the area are vulnerable to catastrophic flooding that could cause as much as $30 billion in property damage.

“If you lose control of the American River you can have severe damages because it is such a heavily urbanized flood plain,” said Tim Washburn, counsel for the agency. “Without our project there would be no opportunity for growth in this area.”

The flood-control dam is championed in Congress by Reps. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) and Robert Matsui (D-Sacramento). In a flurry of last-minute maneuvering, the pair are attempting to include money for the Auburn flood-control dam in a public works bill and win approval before Congress adjourns in October.

In seeking federal funding, supporters of the dam are trying to steer a narrow course between the demands of environmentalists to preserve the canyons and the desire of some foothill residents for a full-scale dam.

The latest proposal for Auburn attempts to minimize environmental damage by requiring a permanent opening in the dam so that water cannot be stored. Such a dam would cause flooding in the canyons upstream only during times of intense rain, with the water draining out in a period of weeks.

But the dam is also designed so that it could be expanded into a larger multipurpose dam--with water storage, power generation and a recreational lake--if the funds were ever to become available.

“I believe that you can build and operate a flood-control project that will not do severe damage to the environment,” Washburn said. “At the same time, we are not going to put a facility there that will make it impossible for a multipurpose project.”

Environmental organizations like Friends of the River and the Environmental Defense Fund, however, have not been swayed. They offer their own flood-control alternatives, which they contend would provide adequate flood protection at a much lower cost.

They call for improving levees on the American River in urban Sacramento and rebuilding the spillway at Folsom Lake so water could be released more quickly in times of flood. And in a plan sure to meet with widespread opposition in Sacramento, they propose maintaining popular Folsom Lake at a significantly lower level to capture more winter floodwaters.

“We believe the solution to this problem is to upgrade flood protection for the lower American River area substantially but not at the expense of the upstream canyons,” said Tom Graff, an Environmental Defense Fund attorney who has been fighting the Auburn Dam for two decades. “The reality is if one were only looking at enhancing flood protection, one would immediately go look at the levees.”

In the foothills around Auburn, most people would like to put all that water behind a big dam and create a lake that would attract tourists. In addition, the dam would provide water and power that could spur growth in the region.

Backers of the big dam even use environmental arguments, saying the structure would catch water that could later be parceled out to preserve fisheries downstream and improve the water quality of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Flooding the scenic canyons that are popular for white-water river rafting, they say, would be a small price to pay for all the benefits of a big dam.

“We need to have the ability to preserve, rather than waste, our water supply,” said Art Cox, a retired banker and former mayor of Auburn. “The number of people who can truly enjoy these canyons is minimal compared to the number of people who could enjoy an Auburn Lake.”

NEW DAM ON AMERICAN RIVER?

Auburn Dam was authorized by Congress in 1965 as a large water storage facility, spurring debate over the future of the American River and the need for more dams in Northern California. After more than a decade of controversy, the Jimmy Carter Administration called for new studies on the environmental effects of the dam. The project has been revived as smaller dam for flood control. Local officials say it is needed to allow continued growth and to reduce flood insurance costs.