The Stanislaus River

Though the campaign to save the Stanislaus River from drowning behind the New Melones Dam was not successful, it helped to end the big-dam-building era and energize the nascent environmental movement. The campaign was driven by tens of thousands of volunteers between 1969 and 1982. In 1982, the dam was completed and the reservoir filled for the first time, destroying all life within the river corridor. Many of these activists have since used their experience during the campaign to cause significant change around the world.

In the spring of 2022, a handful of activists from the original campaign reunited in support of this film and founded a new nonprofit called Restoring the Stanislaus River in order to make this film come true. The mission is even larger – to restore and steward the whole river and its watershed. 

Proceeds from the film will support the restoration of the Stanislaus River, specifically to reduce the dam and restore the 13 miles of river it harmed.

The Stanislaus flows west out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California about thirty miles north of Yosemite Valley, cutting through a thick limestone formation. The thirteen-mile stretch damaged by the New Melones Dam was one of the most popular whitewater runs in the country, flowing through the deepest limestone canyon in the western United States. In these thirteen miles, visitors could find pre-Miwok petroglyphs, multitudes of Miwok sites, and gold-rush artifacts. They could explore caves and frolic in the pools of side creeks. This vivid connection to nature and the miracle of the canyon's treasures was made all the more poignant as the dam’s pending desecration loomed.

On its way to join the San Joaquin River, the Stanislaus River passes through more than fourteen dams that syphon and divert its water. The New Melones Dam is the fourteenth and by far the largest. After nearly forty years, the dam has not fulfilled the benefits promised by its backers. The dam has only been filled to capacity five times, generally sitting below halfway and is often referred to as an example of fraudulent pork-barrel spending.