Shasta Dam in the late 1970s.

Photo by Tim Stroshane.

The US Bureau of Reclamation requested extensions of time on 32 of its Central Valley Project water right permits from the State Water Board on September 3, 2009, in order to fully apply water allocated through these permits to beneficial uses.

The Bureau wants to expand its diversions on the Trinity, Sacramento, American, Old (in the Delta), and Stanislaus rivers. The timing of these petitions suggests the Bureau may be looking for a source of water with which to fill the Peripheral Canal, should it be built. C-WIN filed 32 protest petitions in response, arguing that there is no surplus water in these streams when senior water rights are accounted for, and that current operations have been ruinous to salmon fisheries in all of these streams.

California Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries Service also filed protests on the Bureau's petitions.

The Bureau's attempt to gain more time to fulfill its water rights is paper water in action: the state water rights permit promises more water to the Bureau than there is water in any of the five streams available to fulfill them, especially when other water right users and the destruction of fisheries and ecosystems in these watersheds are taken into account.