A new pumping station worth more than $100 million planned for Red Bluff doesn't necessarily signal the end of Lake Red Bluff.

"It's always cheaper and more efficient to divert directly from the lake," Paul Freeman, division chief for the Bureau of Reclamation at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam, said Thursday.

The lingering question is how long the lake would be in place each year.

"No one is quite sure what the future holds," Red Bluff City Manager Martin Nichols said Thursday.

When lowered into the Sacramento River, all 11 of the dam's 18-foot steel gates create a gravity-powered diversion of water into the Tehama-Colusa Canal. They also form the six-mile lake along the river that for so long was home to annual drag boat races in May and other summertime recreation.

The problem being weighed by federal fishery managers, under the guidance of a federal judge, is that the dam also blocks migrating salmon, steelhead and sturgeon.

"The gravity diversion is the most efficient way," Freeman said. "Unfortunately, it has environmental impacts."

A new federal plan for managing the dam is expected in June. In the meantime, Lake Red Bluff is set to only be in place from June 15 to Aug. 15.

Seeing in recent years that a shortened lake season could affect its water supply, the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority has pushed for an electric pumping station. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday that the pumping station would be funded by economic stimulus money.

Construction of the plant should be around May 2012, Freeman said. Until then, a temporary pumping plant has been set up to supply water to the canal, which typically provides water to 150,000 agricultural acres on the west side of the Sacramento Valley.

This year's shrunken lake season has already resulted in the cancellation of the Nitro Nationals Drag Boat Festival, which had been a Red Bluff institution for 32 years, said Ali Abassi, president of New Entertainment Concepts.

For the past 10 years, Abassi's company organized the races which drew about 30,000 spectators, but the company now has shut down without its cornerstone event. The races were held over Memorial Day weekend and Abassi said it would be difficult to get the drag boat circuit to shift to another week given the uncertainty of the lake.

"The future for Nitro Nationals looks pretty bleak," Abassi said. "The truth is we might not have any water ever."

For a fledgling boat race event, albeit with less horsepower, the loss of the lake isn't stopping the show.

The third Great National Canoe and Kayak Drag Races will be held May 15 to 16 on the Sacramento River, where Lake Red Bluff would usually form, said Ben Hughes, board chairman of the Sacramento River Discovery Center. The center has organized the races on Lake Red Bluff the past two years.

"We are going to try it this year without the lake," Hughes said.

By Dylan Darling
Friday, April 17, 2009