John Buckley: Damming the Clavey wouldn’t deter floods or store much water

Re “Dam the Clavey, stop the floods” (Letters, Feb. 26): Last Sunday a letter writer incorrectly claimed that damming the Clavey River would somehow hold back a lot of water and stop potential flooding along the Tuolumne River. That letter was completely inaccurate.

In reality, the Clavey River contributes only a very tiny percentage of inflow into the Tuolumne River and Don Pedro Reservoir. Almost all inflow comes from Cherry Creek and the South, Middle, North and Middle forks of the Tuolumne River. The long-abandoned plans by TID/MID to dam the Clavey decades ago never intended for dams to store water because the river’s flows are minimal. The proposed project only aimed to produce profitable hydroelectricity, but the tremendous costs for the dam project proved completely unrealistic, plus federal agency analysis denied the project for resource protection reasons. Even if the two proposed dams had been built, they would have been maintained at least half full (similar to Hetch Hetchy and Don Pedro) prior to all the massive rainfall and the tiny amount of storage they would have provided would be meaningless.

As small as the river’s flows are, the beautiful, wild Clavey River has precious value as one of the state’s only free-flowing rivers.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 6:40 PM with the headline "John Buckley: Damming the Clavey wouldn’t deter floods or store much water."