Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
I have drafted this proposed Congressional Resolution:
House Resolution #HR _____
Congress finds:
1) Flows on the Stanislaus River in the Floods of 1861-2 may have reached approximately 280,000 cubic feet per second on approximately January 9, 1862 or January 20, 1862 or both, and
2) In building New Melones Dam, the United States Bureau of Reclamation provided 120,000 cfs of bypass capacity, and
3) On the adjacent Tuolumne River the flows on those dates may have approximated 420,000 cfs; for their New Don Pedro Dam Modesto Irrigation District and Turlock Irrigation District provided 486,570 cfs of bypass capacity, and
4) The floods of 1861-62 killed thousands of people in California and yet was the least of 7 such massive floods over the past 1800 years,
Therefore, Congress requests that the United States Bureau of Reclamation,
5) Verify or correct the numbers stated above, and
6) Present a plan for increasing the bypass capacity for New Melones Dam, and
7) Describe the ramifications for people and property downstream of either increasing or not increasing that bypass capacity.
Arnold Schwarzenegger understood the risks California faces from the inevitable repeat of those floods, but for some reason Jeff Denham doesn’t.

Mike Barkley
Manteca