Editor’s note:

Here is a disingenuous statement; 

"Building a new dam won’t create more rain or snow in the Mokelumne watershed." 

No, but building more Dams will increase holding and collection capacities. Do the math. High sierra dams (above 5000 ft. elevation) can provide water storage with little impact to the alpine environment, compared to low country dams.  

Here is another disingenuous statement;

"EBMUD needs more-secure sources of water in dry years. Conservation and recycling will provide more water during drought than an empty reservoir." 

Actually, this writer is apparently uninformed or avoiding the fact that EBMUD has been pushing conservation for fifteen years. Also, You can only recycle water so much, before supplies exceed demand. Third, reservoirs will still gather rainfall even if it is reduced over the next hundred years, only a plan of no new dams commits Us to a future of little or no water.

While most environmentalists have good intentions, the facts in this case are indisputable:

 -- there will be less rainfall in the next hundred years in California…population will skyrocket.

 -- if high country dams are not used, no additional water storage is realistically possible.

 -- if water is in finite supply, human uses will eventually trump nature, and water will be diverted, rivers and fish will die.

The only sane and logical course of action?

-- Double or even triple water storage with new high country dams.

--  Manage human uses of water along the watershed, with excess flows first cleaned, then released back into the downstream watershed (as currently prescribe by California law.)

-- While human demands will remain strong, there will be enough water flowing in the watershed(s) for Mankind and Nature to exist, even with climate changes. 

With that said, on to the main article:




SAVE THE MOKELUMNE! A Special EBMUD Workshop held on Tuesday

Join us in Oakland Tuesday or e-mail the East Bay MUD Board and tell EBMUD to drop the proposed Pardee expansion.

Thanks to your many comments and loud opposition, East Bay MUD has delayed a final decision on its 2040 water plan, including the Pardee Reservoir expansion. The board will hold a workshop on Tuesday to discuss the plan. The Pardee expansion will be on the agenda.

Please join us in Oakland Tuesday or send an e-mail to the EBMUD board to remind the directors that the Mokelumne River is a real place, loved by real people, that cannot be reduced to acre feet or gallons of water per day.

Please consider joining us at the workshop. You'll have only three minutes to speak, but we've been assured that everyone will have a chance to talk.

Can you come? We're working on providing transportation from Jackson to Oakland (and back). The bus, vans, or carpools will leave early Tuesday morning, before 8 a.m. The Pardee portion of the workshop is expected to start around 10 a.m. and end before noon.

If you can come and need a ride, please reply to  randy@foothillconservancy.org by 7 pm on Sunday, August 9. Please include your daytime phone number and the number of people in your group. We'll get back to you with details and confirmation. If you can provide transportation for others, let us know that, too.

The meeting is at EBMUD's Administration Building, 375 11th Street, Oakland, CA 94607

If you can't make it, please send an e-mail to  Board President Doug Linney (dlinney@ebmud.com) and ask him to share it with his fellow directors.  Be sure to mention some or all of the following:

-- Please drop the Pardee expansion from the EBMUD 2040 water plan. Our foothill community is united in opposing it.

-- EBMUD staff and directors have said they won't pursue the expansion unless local communities agree. It's time to honor that pledge and drop Pardee from the plan.

-- The harm to our communities, families, and economy from losing more of the Mokelumne cannot be measured in an EIR. This river is the heart of our community and EBMUD shoud not consider destroying it. They have taken enough of the river.

-- It is unthinkable for EBMUD to consider destroying more miles of the Mokelumne when they have alternatives in their own back yard. They should evaluate the expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir, an off-stream reservoir west of the Delta. They should adopt a 20 percent drought rationing standard, not just 10 percent. They should look at future technologies, and adopt more conservation and recycling.

 -- Building a new dam won’t create more rain or snow in the Mokelumne watershed. EBMUD needs more-secure sources of water in dry years. Conservation and recycling will provide more water during drought than an empty reservoir.

-- EBMUD should not think it can buy off our communities in 3 years, 5 years, or 10 years. We love the Mokelumne River and will continue to fight as long as it takes to protect the river forever. If they keep Pardee in the plan, they are choosing the path of long-term conflict, not finding "peace on the Mokelumne."

-- It's time to permanently shelve the tired, old Pardee expansion plan and move on to other alternatives. We would not do this to the East Bay communities. EBMUD should not even consider doing it to ours.

Thanks!

P.S. If you haven't yet endorsed National Wild and Scenic River designation for the Mokelumne, please  do it today! It's the true, long-term solution for our river. 
See http://www.foothillconservancy.org The latest Pardee plan is the 5th proposal to flood the Middle Bar reach in the last 30 years.


Wild and Scenic Mokelumne -- A River for Everyone

Foothill Conservancy
P.O. Box 1255
Pine Grove, CA 95665

http://www.foothillconservancy.org

fhc@foothillconservancy.org