Stanislaus: The Struggle for a River

by Tim Palmer

This is the story of the struggle to save the Stanislaus, first waged by a small group of whitewater enthusiasts, but later to involve conservationists, economists, state water experts, Congressmen, and also thousands of citizens who saw the Stanislaus as a special place that ought to be left alone. . .The Stanislaus controversy raises issues bearing on almost every aspect of water development, river protection, and resource politics.

297 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1982

About the author

Tim Palmer is the award-winning author of many books about rivers, conservation, and adventure travel. He is a photographer of America's natural landscapes and a dynamic public speaker with inspiring slide shows about a range of environmental topics.

Reviews

[noahmm · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times, the writing was somewhat dry and struggled to hold my full attention. Much of the book is written about bureaucratic processes and those parts can be pretty boring. The author throws around a bunch of names that are hard to keep track of and he constantly introduces new ones. Across the board, though, I would say that I liked the book. It gave accounts from the people who fought the dam’s construction as they were actively fighting it, as hope was gained and lost over and over.

This book is an encompassing tale of one of the great tragedies of the late 20th century: the construction and filling of the New Melones Reservoir, damming a unique section of the Stanislaus River Canyon. The landscape of California is (depending on your persuasion) marred by dozens of artificial reservoirs small and large, drowning thousands of acres of culturally and environmentally significant lands. Before I even knew this book existed I knew the outcome: I’ve driven past New Melones many times, and heard tell of the unique species and geography that lay dead and drowned beneath its still waters. At every page I hoped desperately that I was wrong, that I’d imagined the whole thing, that the Friends of the River were successful and prevented the dam from being filled. But that world is not the one we live in.

This book is a ledger of the dead, a cautionary tale to all who may read recording the death of the Stanislaus River Canyon, which stood for so much and was home to so much uniqueness. It is an inspiration, too, to fight for what you believe in, even when the odds are against you and defeat is ultimately the outcome. I wish I could say things are different now in the civilized age of the 2020s, but two more dams are proposed on the west side of the Central Valley that will serve as holding tanks for water pumped in from elsewhere. If these go through, yes, California will have more water, but we already have more than we need if it were allocated sensibly. With the creation of every dam, rare and unique organisms lose critical habitat, Indigenous peoples lose their very homes and livelihoods, and everyone loses beautiful landscapes worth spending time in. It is heartbreaking that we lost the fight for New Melones, but this book highlights a number of folks who fought tooth and nail until the very end.

New Melones was filled by the early 1980s and was one of the last reservoirs created in California. The 625 foot dam is a testament to Western society’s commitment to force nature to bend to its will instead of adapting to the landscape and environs that surround us. New Melones is one cog in the great machine of the Central Valley Project, a scheme engineered by so-called great minds to move water hundreds of miles from where it falls to lands apparently more deserving of it.

The sheer scale of the CVP is dizzying, catching water from Northern California and shipping it to the Central Valley and Southern California to water crops and fill swimming pools in desert lands. Cotton, grapes, almonds, and beautiful SoCal gardens come at the cost of so much of California’s biodiversity. Dams are situated in myriad regions where vast swathes of land are sacrificed and subjected to drowning once the dams are raised. We build science-fiction contraptions to move water vast distances, defying gravity and logic to get what we want: water

Of course we need water, but Westerners are so content with sticking to our ways that we will literally move mountains instead of amending our behaviors. If we changed what we grew, where we grew it, and how much water we consumed, the natural hydrology of California, or a less significantly modified version of it, would suffice our needs. By continuing to expand aqueducts and create reservoirs to irrigate arid lands we are sinking (quite literally; the Central Valley has subsided dozens of feet due to groundwater pumping) deeper and deeper into a self-feeding water deficit that can only be fixed with more water. Greed consumes the capitalist mind, and greed is what felled the forests and dammed our mighty rivers into pitiful trickles. We lost New Melones; someday, I hope the dams will come down. Some day they have to. Whenever that comes will be too late, regardless. The lands that were drowned forty-odd years ago won’t ever return the same as they were before.

I must admit to a conflict of interests: I grew up on New Melones water. Were it not for that reservoir, my home town and county would’ve had to get their water from elsewhere. And so some thanks could be given to the engineers of the reservoir. But I can’t, in good faith, do that. Despite benefitting from its creation, I didn’t ask for New Melones. I didn’t have a chance to vote on Proposition 17, which would has designated the Stanislaus as a Wild and Scenic River and spared it from perturbations, for when it was on the ballot even my parents were not yet conceived.

Given the option, I would have chosen the free-flowing Stanislaus River Canyon, with its intricate whitewater rapids, hills pockmarked with limestone caves, and all manner of life springing from every glorious inch. What does it say that we are robbing future generations of their wild lands and free-flowing rivers? I suppose that that is a central crux of this book, asking ourselves what values we hold most dear. I will say that the New Melones fight made a permanent impact on the water development issue in California and even the US, and that the Stanislaus can be cited as a war cry in future battles to save other rivers.

[Zack]

I liked the mixture of ecology, history and politics in this book. I also liked how it documents a largely unsuccessful struggle to stop a river from being dammed. Not everything needs to be a feel good story. There's much to learn about what didn't work here. Writer Tim Palmer introduces a ton of characters and organizations, and it would have been good if there was an index of some sort because it got a tad confusing at times. Still, the conversational tone worked well, and I was impressed that he managed to get some good input from the bad guys as well as the good. He really got them to show their assholes. Kind of sad and ominous how this captured the Jimmy Carter era before it was done -- things would get so much worse soon.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up a couple of miles from the disputed section of the Stanislaus River after New Melones was already dammed and flooded, so I have a particular interest in this issue. But that aside, I think this is an incredibly well-researched, well-reported, and vibrant depiction of the fight to save a river. Palmer captures a staggering array of characters in excellent detail and makes the intricacies of water policy engaging.