The long-lived federal Auburn dam proposal is officially dead.
The state water board drove the last nail into the coffin Tuesday, unanimously revoking the water rights it dedicated to the American River project nearly 40 years ago.
"This is a death certificate," board spokesman William Rukeyser said following the 5-0 vote.
Under California's use-it-or-lose-it water laws, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had to put its rights to American River water to "beneficial use," as it had proposed with a 690-foot-high dam and a 68-mile canal to San Joaquin County.
But the bureau halted construction more than 30 years ago because of safety concerns following a 5.7-magnitude earthquake 50 miles north of Auburn. Environmental concerns and ballooning costs have delayed the project ever since, leaving the river's deep north fork canyon heavily scarred but not blocked.
"You have to use water with due diligence and due faith, and that hasn't been followed here," water board member Arthur Baggett said before casting his vote to rescind the bureau's rights to 2.5 million acre-feet of water a year. An acre-foot of water covers 1 acre a foot deep, enough to supply an average family of five for a year.
That's by far the largest amount of revoked water rights in memory, board officials said.
The revocation opens the door to other applicants for those American River water rights. The city of Sacramento and San Joaquin County already have filed.
The State Water Resources Control Board has rarely taken back water rights. It did so Tuesday only after 37 years had passed with no dam construction in sight.
"Without a doubt, the water board was patient – 37 years patient," Rukeyser said.
The bureau's proposal surfaced in President Harry Truman's administration, won congressional authorization in 1965, was redesigned after the 1975 quake and slowly petered out as cost estimates skyrocketed and the values of an unimpeded north fork of the American River rose.
The bureau had planned to store up to 5 million acre-feet for flood control, power generation, recreation and farming and urban consumption.
The water board many times had granted extensions to the bureau, which operates a network of aqueducts and giant dams including Shasta, Folsom and Friant near Fresno.
In 2001, the board said it could not consider another extension unless the bureau documented the dam's environmental effects on the American River drainage and downstream through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where massive water pumping to cities and farms south and other pressures have decimated fish populations. But the environmental studies never came.
"The bureau didn't follow through. So the water board had no choice but to move to revoke the water rights," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which formally protested the extension along with the local Friends of the River, Protect American River Canyons and the Planning and Conservation League.
The bureau made no comment at Tuesday's water rights hearing in Sacramento. The agency had made its case for an extension at a board hearing in July.
The agency had argued that it should retain the water rights until Congress definitively decides whether to pursue or scrap the Auburn proposal it authorized in 1965.
"We see it as their decision," said Lynnette Wirth, a bureau spokeswoman in Sacramento.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, and representatives of the California Farm Bureau spoke Tuesday against revocation, saying Congress might view the dam proposal more favorably in light of projected water shortages from global warming, population growth and stronger environmental protections.
Rukeyser of the state water board said the bureau is welcome to reapply for water rights should Congress have a change of heart. But the bureau doesn't see that happening anytime soon.
"We don't see on our plate of key issues trying to revitalize Auburn dam," Wirth said.
The finale of Auburn dam came as Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin, leaves Congress, where he had been a tireless proponent of the project.
The prospect of the dam surfaced in the race to be Doolittle's replacement.
Republican candidate Tom McClintock said an Auburn dam "could produce the cheapest electricity on the planet." Democratic hopeful Charlie Brown said the $10 billion-plus project cost far exceeds potential energy benefits.
Call The Bee's Chris Bowman, (916) 321-1069.
