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Who would benefit from this project?

The official project applicant, Nick Josten, lives in Twin Falls, Idaho. His is the sole name on the application, though other partners or investors have been mentioned in various meetings and articles. Josten stated in a meeting with landowners that this project is a personal investment to put his kids through college.

Josten is associated in this project with a Twin Falls, Idaho hydroelectric engineering company, GeoSense, owned by Ted Sorensen. Josten has applied to FERC for similar projects but none have been licensed. He is a geological engineer and owns this mapping company.

Mr. Josten became connected to Modoc County through his wife. She is related to a local ranching family though she did not grow up in the area herself. Members of that family, along with other area ranchers, belong to the South Fork Irrigation District.

The South Fork Irrigation District (SFID) controls the diversion canal and dam and own the water right for their six-month diversion and storage in West Valley Reservoir which is used to irrigate agricultural fields downstream. According to the application, project "ownership" -- free electricity and profits -- would revert to the SFID in 20 years.

One of the members of the SFID is Alturas Ranches, owned by (among others) millionaire San Jose developer Barry Swenson and managed by Jay Younger. Though no agreement has been signed, Mr. Swenson or his companies have been mentioned by project supporters as the source of funding to build the project.

Benefits for the Few

The project investment would finance long overdue improvements to the SFID's primitive 1930's earthen diversion canal and pay for fish screens to keep fish in the main river. What is not made clear is that grant money is potentially available to make these improvements WITHOUT this project draining the river. See a recent grant-funded project on the South Fork Pit River a few miles downstream.

Project money would also fund "mitigation" -- ways to allow endangered fish species to survive in the drained river through small channels and fish ladders in the riverbed. Certainly a much more efficient way to solve that problem would be to not drain the river in the first place!

Other misconceptions about project benefits to Modoc County are listed here.

If this sounds like a bad deal for the South Fork Pit River, please write a letter!

WEST VALLEY HYDRO HISTORY

This project has been proposed several times in the past.

Project applications were filed in the 1980's when energy prices spikes and was subsequently abandoned because the price fell and could not make the project worthwhile.

Many of the outdated studies included in the present project date from that time.

In the 1930's when the West Valley Dam was new, private hydroelectric generation was explored by the SFID but the government's Rural Electrification program made it unnecessary.

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