Porter, Stacy

From: Victorine, Rebecca A SPK [Rebecca.A.Victorine@spk01.usace.army.mil]

Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 6:35 AM

To: Shawn Oliver; Rosemary Stefani; Porter, Stacy; Wondolleck, John

Cc: Rinck, Jane L SPK

Subject: FW: EIS/EIR for Folsom Dam Area

Follow Up Flag: Follow up

Flag Status: Completed

Page 1 of 1

3/8/2007

FYI - the first comment I've received. I will work with others at the Corps to draft a response and share with you.

 

Thanks,

Becky

From: Almeida, Keoni [mailto:KAlmeida@caiso.com] 

Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 10:55 AM 

To: Victorine, Rebecca A SPK 

Cc: jason.zarghami@intel.com; vine2@aol.com; libbyalmeida@sbcglobal.net 

Subject: EIS/EIR for Folsom Dam Area 

Rebecca, I would like to ask you some questions regarding the EIS/EIR for Folsom Dam Area as I believe I am 

one of the residence along the lake (1428 Lakehills Drive, El Dorado Hills) that would be impacted if the dam was 

raised 4, 7, or 17 feet. I would like to confirm which residences are referred to in the report on page 3.16-15 (four 

parcels and one possible residential relocation; Alternative 2 with 4-foot raise), page 3.16-16 (one possible 

residential relocation; Alternative 3, with a 3.5-foot raise); page 3.16-16 (six possible residential relocations; 

alternative 4, with a 7-foot raise); page 3.16-18 (37 possible residential relocations; Alternative 5, with a 17-foot 

raise). 

As a general comment regarding the report, it seems to take the potential option of acquiring residential properties 

lightly. This is evident by the numerous maps shown for the various alternatives showing work areas and 

proposed construction sites without one of the maps showing the area that would be most impacted in terms of 

residential relocation. I am simply surmising that the houses along where I live will be impacted by the fact that 

the 500 foot contour depicting the work area on the numerous maps is above the elevation of the properties in my 

neighborhood. 

The report proposes an option to avoid relocating residences. The proposal includes the construction of new 

flood damage reduction berms to remedy temporary flooding of the above-referenced properties during extreme 

storm events. This option would disrupt the natural setting surrounding the lake in the Lakehills Estates area. 

Please call me as I would like to discuss this important matter with you further. 

Thank you.

Keoni Almeida

Account Manager

California ISO [www.caiso.com]

916-608-1121

 





















CHRIS HODGES: I'm Chris Hodges and I'm from Brother's Boats. We're a boat dealer 

in Sacramento. Two comments: One, procedurally, is we found out about the details of 

how Folsom Lake is going to be impacted very late. I only became aware of it last week 

on Thursday, and I know the report was released on the 21st just before Christmas, but 

the news really hasn't gotten out and I think there are a lot of people that want to 

comment that aren't aware yet, so that's one point. 

The second thing is as it relates particularly to the closure of Folsom Point to 

recreation and use, if it was a request, our request would be that that wouldn't occur and it 

looks like there's an alternative to put the processing facility perhaps to the east side of 

the Mormon Island or Dike 9, the east end of it, and thereby avoid having to close 

Folsom Point. I don't know all the factors that would be involved and how reasonable that 

alternative is, but closing Folsom Point would have a large impact on the whole 

community on the southeast side of the lake, there would only be one access point left 

and that is a tight access now up at the marina. There would still be access on the south 

side of the lake, but it's only at the marina and that's a rather limited facility. So to repeat 

it, our request is the processing facility be moved to the east end of the Mormon Island 

area to keep Folsom Point open. It seems from the EIR over 800,000 people or users 

would be affected by the closure of Folsom Point, and I would think that that would 

translate to several million to $10 million of lost opportunity at least and that that could 

be mitigated by moving the facility, the processing plant. It would be more expensive to 

have the processing plant in the Mormon Island area on the east side but the other side of 

it is that it would be much less impact to the public and I think a good idea. 

Comment #16

BILL WATSON: We would like to ask that the Bureau and Corps give definite 

consideration to mitigating the effects on recreation especially at Folsom Point. We 

suggest that they consider moving the burrowing and crushing operations to areas other 

than the public areas so that the Point can stay open. The economic impact of closing 

Folsom Point on our community, the City of Folsom, was not considered in the document 

at all and we've already been hit hard by the closing of the dam road. And to have this on 

top of it really compounds the problems in our city. Second, we would like to request that 

the comment period be extended. We were not notified of the document or the comment 

period and so we were unaware until this last Friday that we had a responsibility. And 

finally, we would like to have a presentation from the Bureau and the Corps to our board 

of directors, if that could be arranged in the very near future. 

Comment #17

STEVE HODGES: First, I guess the first comment was the lack of notice or actually we 

just didn't -- it's hard to get notified which we've discussed. We're not in the loop, the 

public loop. And then I think the recreational aspects we were trying to keep Folsom 

Point open as much as possible because that's our main access to the lake from that side, 

from the Folsom side which is really heavily used, one of the most-visited parks in the 

state. But talking to the engineers, I understand that closing Dike 8 is really part of the 

development -- the improvement of the Mormon Island Dam and you really can't get 

around it because of all the material they need to put there, and they need to get access 

through the main dam when they're doing the excavation at Mormon Island. So I would 

really like to see alternative facilities. We have other locations that we could use for 

access point in the park or the lake, if you will, that are underdeveloped and if we could 

get those expanded. Like there's one a few miles from Folsom Point, the Brown's 

Ravine, if that facility could be expanded and that would, I think, do a lot to help the 

recreational loss of Folsom Point. 

MR. NEPSTAD: Right. So basically make up for the loss of access by increasing the 

capacity of the other access points and even getting some of these that are under 

development put in earlier maybe than they would have otherwise? 

STEVE HODGES: Or, yeah, I don't think there's any plans of improvement or that I 

know of, at least the Brown's Ravine facility, so that would be a real bonus, and we were 

talking to -- was it John or one of the engineers said that it's unclear that Folsom Point, at 

what times it actually needed to be closed so I'm not sure. 

MR. NEPSTAD: So clarity on when it would be out of operation then? 

STEVE HODGES: Yeah, I guess that would be a question. There again, I wouldn't 

want to slow the project down by making it be open during the construction. I think the 

progress of the project would be the main concern, getting the thing finished. He also 

mentioned that with all the material, there could be -- Folsom Point when they're through, 

could be really changed and developed into a different type of facility, expanded, so that's 

kind of exciting to see. I don't know if the Bureau has any plans for that or not. 

MR. NEPSTAD: Okay, and that would be something good to have explained? 

STEVE HODGES: Right, because they're the ones that manage the public recreation. 

So that would be a suggestion. That's it. 

Comment #18

JERRY TOENYES: I've got some comments here. The first comment I have is it's not 

abundantly clear when you look at the EIS document that there's kind of three different 

segments. There's the Dam raise which is the Corps engineers project; there is the 

auxiliary spillway, which is the Joint Federal Project; and then there's the Mormon Island 

which is the safety of dams project. And I think it would be good right up front to make 

that so that it's real clear when you look at the document that there's kind of three separate 

parts there. And you could include I'm sure other phases to that besides that, that's L.L. 

Anderson, the bridge, the environmental work, those type things and whether those are -- 

I think those are all Corps projects too. 

MR. NEPSTAD: And it would be to get it up-front organized a little better so it's easier 

to follow through? 

JERRY TOENYES: Yeah. And then most of my comments aren't really in the EIS 

itself but it's stuff that certainly that has an impact on the water and power. The first one 

is the cost allocation. You know, I think it should be clear that for the, for example, the 

Dam raise, the Dam raise is 100 percent flood control which is a Corps project. Now, 

maybe you got reimbursed responsibilities there with SAFCA, but I think it should be 

clear as to what that is, you know? 

MR. NEPSTAD: Right. How the cost are allocated for the various phases? 

JERRY TOENYES: That's right. For the spillway, now that's going to be one that's 

going to be split between flood control and safety of dams. And then we've got the 

Mormon Island that's going to be safety of dams. But on the split between flood control 

and safety of dams, how that's going to occur in the process. Quite frankly, we just rolled 

out in the 2002 report a proposal, you know, here's the number. It was kind of like set in 

concrete. We didn't have any input into it and then later on it was said that, well, no, it 

wasn't really wasn't 48 percent/52 percent, we made an error. It should have been 42 

percent/58 percent. We don't want to have that surprise. We want to be able to have the 

public input, know it and understand it, okay, we got it and we support it. And then I 

think kind of in conjunction with that too should be the cost of the alternatives. In the 

listing, there's nothing in the EIS on that. I understand there's another document maybe 

that has some of that but, I mean, this was the first time I saw this, the $950 million. So I 

think it would be good to have a listing of what the costs are, and I'm assuming that the 

fuse plug would be cheaper than the Joint Federal Project, but I mean, and you can't see 

that from there and that's very helpful, quite frankly, for cost allocations. 

One other item to comment on is the temperature control device. I think there's a 

real opportunity here. I think, you know, it isn't, again, clear in the EIS what's going to 

be done on the temperature control device. I think there's a real opportunity to do 

something similar to what was done at Shasta where you're able to go down below where 

the penstock level is too and so that you can really control what the temperature is. And I 

think the environmental community would be very supportive of that too because they 

would want to know what the temperature is and be able to manipulate that. Right now, 

it's pretty rudimentary. You pull off a shield or whatever that is, you know, it's just got 

Comment #19
three segments. It's pretty rudimentary, and I think with maybe just a little more thought 

and maybe not too much more cost, you can put a pretty good temperature control device. 

The next comment would be there are different projects going on, different parts, 

but one part is the reoperation of the Folsom Dam which is separate from this but 

certainly linked because what you come up with here for the preferred alternative is going 

to have a tie-in on the reoperation there so something should be matched a little bit more 

on the reoperation. And what I really encourage is any EIS/EIR, you have a statement in 

there that the flood control reservation is 400,000/600,000-acre feet. But I think there's a 

opportunity to -- you also talk about doing prereleases. Well, what I might encourage is 

don't get set on 400,000/600,000. I think as we get smarter as we go through this and talk 

about for case-based operations which the Corps is looking at. Maybe, I think, it would 

be easier – it should be better, I think the environmental community and water and power 

users would like to see a fuller reservoir but make prereleases two or three days ahead of 

when the storm's coming in to get down to whatever level you think is going to be 

necessary for the storm. And if you don't have a storm, which is nine times out of ten 

you're not going to have a storm coming, so it won't affect it. But then you've got a higher 

level, especially in dry years, to carry over to meet all your water quality issues in the 

American River and the Delta and all that, and plus you've still got water obviously for 

the water interests and power, M&I interests, and Fish and Wildlife interest. So I just 

encourage you to stay flexible in that reservation about whether you're locking that in 

because once you lock something and here's the rule. I think we need to be wiser as we 

go in the future on that one because water's going to get tighter and tighter, so making 

prereleases and then not having the reservoir filled up is not in anyone's interest. And we 

certainly have an example of that just in 2004, so pretty recently that occurred. 

And then the last comment I have is on security, security features. That's more of 

a Reclamation feature, I think, but you know it's mentioned but it isn't mentioned what 

the project's going to be and how much of that, again, is going to be the responsibility of 

water and power to pay. And, you know, probably there's some national security where 

you don't want to go in and do much detail, but you've got to give us enough information 

so we know what's going on as far as what our cost responsibility is. If you're stringing 

out a big powerline or something like that, you know, we need to know that as far as what 

the capital costs and what the O&M cost responsibility is going to be on that. So I will 

be submitting these type of comments in writing too before the 22nd, but as long as I'm 

sitting here today, I want to give you the oral comments too. 

Comment #19