Obi Kaufmann > Quotes

“01. The Klamath River (see map 02.03). Beginning in 2020, the Klamath will see the dismantling of four dams in its upper basin, representing the largest salmonid habitat restoration project in American history.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“Dam removal can rewrite a painful chapter in our history, and it can be done in a manner that protects the many interests in the Basin.” Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior, US Department of the Interior, 2016.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“03. Oroville Dam on the Feather River. Built fifty years ago, the Oroville Dam is the tallest in the United States at nearly 800 feet tall. The large spillway of this earthen dam threatened to fail after heavy rains in February 2017, and nearly 200,000 people were evacuated. We came close to realizing an unthinkable disaster. This crisis brings into sharp focus the need to assess an aging water infrastructure, especially with the emerging climate trend of increased episodes of aridity followed by larger moments of deluge.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“A dam may appear in our minds to be permanent, a monument to the ages, when dams are, of course, structures that can be redesigned or removed if we will it so. Since 1950, sixty-seven dams have been removed because of safety concerns, for the restoration of riparian habitat, to improve fish passage, for erosion control, to enhance recreational opportunities, because the dam failed, for the removal of invasive bullfrog breeding sites, and for flood control.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“02. Shasta Dam (see map 02.01). California’s largest reservoir, impounding water from the Sacramento, McCloud, and Pit Rivers. There is a proposal to increase the height of the dam, and depending on how high, to increase the capacity of the reservoir behind it to two or three times its current maximum. This expensive proposition is risky in that increasing the size of a reservoir doesn’t create water—in fact it might result in a net water loss from evaporation—and it would destroy some of the best remaining trout habitat in California.2”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“Hetch Hetchy Reservoir (see map 04.01). Entirely within the borders of Yosemite National Park, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, near the headwaters of the Tuolumne River, supplies 85% of the city of San Francisco’s drinking water.5 As upgrades to downstream reservoirs have come online, the people of California are changing their attitude about this reservoir’s value and whether it still outweighs the value of restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource

“Friant Dam. When we built Friant Dam, we explicitly understood that we were condemning salmon in the San Joaquin River.7 This extractive mindset that pays no mind to replenishment or conservation, that says the workings of the natural world are for our own one-time use, is an anachronism of unwise, greedy, and ultimately dangerous thinking. In this case, a lawsuit led to the interagency project to restore salmon to the San Joaquin.”
― Obi Kaufmann, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource