ADDENDUM 

 TO INTERIM RENEWAL CONTRACT PROPOSED ACTION/PROJECT DESCRIPTION 

 December 2003 

The contract amount for the City of Shasta Lake (City) under the new interim renewal water contract in the 

environmental documentation being prepared for interim renewal contracts will be corrected in the final 

documents to reflect that their interim contract will be for 4,400 acre-feet/year rather then the 2,750 

described previously. 

Reclamation believes that this change in contract amount will have no significant or demonstrable effects 

on the environment for the following reasons: 

(1) Although the contract amount is changing to 4,400 acre-feet (ac-ft), the actual use of water within the 

CVP Service Area will not change significantly. Over the last 3 years the City has utilized the following 

quantities of water: 

 2000 - 2615 ac-ft 

 2001 - 2775 ac-ft 

 2002 - 2930 ac-ft 

 2003 - 3000 ac-ft (projected to date) 

These figures represent an annual increase in use of about 4 1⁄2 percent. Amounts over the interim contract 

amount of 2,750 ac-ft have been obtained via transfers of other CVP water. Absent the change in the 

contract amount it is expected that over the next 2 years of the interim contracts the City would continue to 

meet its needs via continued transfers. Projected use for the next 2 years assuming a continuation of an 

annual increase of 4 1⁄2 percent would result in the following use of CVP water: 

 2004 - 3,135 ac-ft 

 2005 - 3,276 ac-ft 

Expressed as a diversion rate, this projected 2005 usage would be about 0.66 cfs greater than the amount 

allowed under the prior interim contracts. 

(2) There likely would be no adverse effect on listed terrestrial species within the City’s CVP Service Area 

because the City's CVP Service Area lacks either designated critical habitat or known occurrences of listed 

species, with the possible exception of valley elderberry longhorn beetle (elderberries). Bald eagles occur 

along the shores of Shasta Lake, 2-6 miles north of the City, but the City's CVP Service Area does not 

provide good foraging habitat for bald eagles, so bald eagles are to be expected, and, therefore, neither are 

affects on bald eagles. There are 43 acres of vernal pools in the southeastern portion of the Service Area, 

but none are classified as critical habitat for the listed vernal pool species present or potentially present in 

Shasta County. Hence, the presence of vernal pools poses no endangered or threatened species issues, 

although vernal pools are habitat of concern that are protected by State and Federal laws concerning 

wetlands. Similarly, elderberries, if present would be expected to be in locally exceptional area protected 

by wetlands laws because the intermittent streams in the Service Area are mostly bordered by blue oak/grey 

pine forests rather than the species, such as willows, cottonwoods, and sycamores, that are indicative of 

wetlands. 

(3) There would likely be no adverse effects on listed and other aquatic species. 

All diversions occur at Shasta Dam, which is upstream of the first impassable barrier on the Sacramento 

River. Hence, entrainment of juvenile salmonids is not an issue. 

The flows in the Sacramento River would not be measurably altered because the water involved is only 

0.02% of the 3,000 cfs minimum releases from Shasta/Keswick. 
Flows in the small, intermittent drainages within the City's CVP Service Area would not be altered with the 

probable exception of Newtown Creek, an intermittent tributary of upper Churn Creek. Newtown Creek 

receives effluent from the waste water treatment plant, but the increment in its flow (<0.66 cfs) would not 

be large enough to affect the downstream reaches of Churn Creek which might contain steelhead or 

juvenile Chinook. 

Finally, the incremental amount of water under the contract would be made available in full compliance 

with all applicable biological opinion requirements currently in place, or will be in place during the period 

of the interim contracts. From an operational standpoint this contract amount represents no demonstrable 

change in CVP operation since transfers of this magnitude between CVP contractors are a routine part of 

CVP operations. 

 

(4) In effect, this action will have no affect on the City's usage of water. 

In the short run it will merely allow the City to suspend the series of temporary water transfers it has relied 

upon in recent years. 

In the long run, this contract change will not affect growth because the region's abundant groundwater 

resources give the local communities the long term capability of developing lands without Reclamation's 

involvement. The large reserves of groundwater in the Redding Basin, where sustainable yields of 40,000 

ac-ft are being incorporated into water management plans, give the area's governments the ability to 

proceed independently of Reclamation, and they are doing so, choosing only to inform us of their growth 

plans as a courtesy. 

(5) This action will not affect regional settlement/development patterns although some such changes are 

foreseeable. 

The rates of change have been modest in the City's CVP Service Area during the past ten years, with the 

1993/2000 land cover change data for the City indicating a conversion of about 0.1% of the land area from 

natural vegetation to urban uses. Of the 19 acres of the City's CVP Service Area indicated as changing 

from natural to urban land cover, 11 acres went from woodland to urban use and 8 acres went from 

grassland to urban use. However, these values may be low by several fold as they apparently don't include 

the recent extension of Pine Grove Avenue from I-5 to Lake Boulevard. Even so, they are not markedly off, 

and surely are well below 1%. 

Future rates of land conversion in the general area, however, may be higher than the recent past would 

indicate because the City of Redding plans to develop an area just south of the southeastern part of the City 

of Shasta Lake's CVP Service Area as a "big box" commercial area. This change, however, would be 

wholly independent of the City of Shasta Lake's interim contract for the reasons previously noted and 

because the water would be provided by the City of Redding. 

Thus, while the land use changes will not be affected by the proposed interim water service contract, as 

previously noted, it is probable that urban development in the City's CVP Service Area may accelerate in 

the next ten years. It is probable that some development will ensue in the southeastern past of the City's 

CVP Service Area in response to the City of Redding action and the access provide by the new Pine Grove 

extension. If so, one would expect in-fill development between the existing urban areas with impacts 

mainly on grassland, shrublands, and blue-oak/grey pine woodland. Again, as noted above, any such 

changes in the region will be able to occur independent of the proposed action.