Help Stop the Raising of Shasta Dam
Right now, the Winnemem Wintu need your active support to fight legislation that would allow Shasta Dam to be raised. This would drown many of their last remaining sacred places and traditional homelands.
Write to Senator Feinstein
Mailed letters still carry great weight on Capitol Hill. Please write your own letter or copy the letter below, paste it onto
your own letterhead and mail to:
Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
If you prefer to email, click here to go to Senator Feinstein website where you can also paste in the letter. Click here for a downloadable pdf of the letter and here for a Word document.
LETTER TO COPY AND PASTE TO MAIL TO SENATOR Feinstein
Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Shasta Dam Raise and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
Dear Senator Feinstein:
Please do not authorize or fund the raising of Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet.
The dam raise would flood most of the remaining homelands of the Winnemem Wintu, people who retain strong connections to ceremonial grounds, sacred sites and ancestral villages along the McCloud River. This tribe has suffered enough from the existing dam. Their traditional way of life depends on the river and the Winnemem culture is a critical thread in the fabric of our society. Let’s not destroy this tribe for an unnecessary and expensive construction project.
Raising the dam would cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars to yield—in high-water years only—a small amount of very expensive water for a handful of beneficiaries. The Shasta reservoir rarely fills now, at the dam’s current height. There are surer, cheaper, faster alternatives, including conservation and efficiency, underground storage and recycling, to provide the needed water. This project will hurt the endangered salmon it is supposed to help. We should not use 20th century technology to address 21st century challenges.
Nor should we further enrich the Westlands Water District with taxpayer subsidized water they can sell for a profit.
Finally, McCloud River is protected under California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Further flooding of the free-flowing McCloud would violate the Act and set a dangerous precedent for all our rivers.
Yours truly,
Here are some suggestions for what you can do to make a difference. There is hope and healing in action.
- Support the people featured in the films:
Altai Republic, Russia—The Altai Project
California, USA—Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Facebook.com/WinnememWintu
Papua New Guinea—Bismarck Ramu Group
Kaho`olawe, Hawai`i—Protect Kaho`olawe Ohana
- Support time tested allies like Honor the Earth, Cultural Survival, Idle No More, Amazon Watch,
The Cultural Conservancy, and Indigenous Environmental Network.
- Urge educators to show the films to their classes. DVDs available from Bullfrog Films.
Check out our 136-page Teacher’s Guide.
- Consider lifestyle changes and support legal reform to reduce energy and water use.
- Be an ethical traveler and a responsible consumer. Minimize impact and seek instruction
from indigenous guardians.
- Be active on a specific issue: Shasta Dam, Keystone XL pipeline, Mauna Kea telescopes,
fossil fuel divestment, the planning process for Kaho`olawe in Hawai`i—and commit for the long haul.
- Broadcasts are happening now. Encourage your friends to watch.
- Record the broadcasts and host a screening party. Download our free Discussion Guides to
ensure thought-provoking and interesting conversation. As a group, think of ways to protect or restore a sacred place in your backyard or far from home, then do it together. Show the film anytime by purchasing the DVD boxed set, which includes bonus short videos.
- Donate to help create foreign language versions of these films for indigenous communities and
ensure widespread distribution.
- Take long walks in wild places—and don’t carry water in disposable plastic bottles!