Posted: January 18, 2008
by: The Associated Press
By Jeff Barnard -- Associated Press

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - An ambitious deal calling for the removal of four hydroelectric dams to restore struggling salmon runs has been forged among farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen, conservation groups and government agencies battling over scarce water in Oregon and neighboring California.

The plan, announced Jan. 15, came after two years of closed-door negotiations among parties with different ideas about how to divide Klamath Basin water between a federal irrigation project and fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The agreement must be reviewed by federal agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department. The Klamath River dams' removal would open 300 miles of rivers that have not seen salmon in the past century by increasing the number of areas for them to spawn and be reared.

The dams could be removed as early as 2015, according to the agreement. Their removal would be the largest such undertaking in American history, said Steve Rothert of the conservation group American Rivers.

Salmon have struggled to survive in the region, where competition for water between farms and fish has been intense, especially in drought years.

Removal of the dams and restoration of salmon depends on approval of about $400 million in new funding over 10 years, primarily from Congress, and an agreement from the dams' owner, Portland-based utility PacifiCorp.

''What we've come up with is a blueprint for how to solve the Klamath crisis,'' said Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, which has worked for years to restore dwindling salmon catches that were once a keystone of members' diet and culture.

PacifiCorp is a unit of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which is controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

PacifiCorp has previously said it would be willing to remove the dams if its ratepayers do not have to pay. But it has also been pursuing a new 30- or 50-year operating license, which would require it to spend about $300 million to build fish ladders. The dams produce enough power for about 70,000 homes.

Steve Thompson, director of the California-Nevada office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, Calif., said the Bush administration has supported the agreement.

Thompson said he knew of no dam removal project in the country that has restored more habitats or would generate more fish than this one.

The agreement calls for giving the 1,000 farms on the Klamath Reclamation Project cut-rate electricity to run irrigation pumps, guaranteeing that farmers can lease lands on wildlife refuges, reducing the amount of water diverted from rivers and reservoirs for irrigation, and increasing the amount of water dedicated to salmon.

Opposition to the agreement is coming from the Hoopa Tribe, based on the Trinity River, which flows into the Klamath below the dams; some farmers who are not part of the Klamath Reclamation Project; and two conservation groups tossed out of the talks last spring, Oregon Wild and WaterWatch.

Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild and Robert Hunter of WaterWatch were skeptical that the deal could actually produce the extra water salmon need to thrive, or that Congress could come up with the money. They characterized the agreement as a sweetheart deal for the Bush administration to give farmers what they want.

''What started out with high hopes with dam removal turned into a Christmas tree that shovels taxpayer money into every special interest in the Klamath Basin,'' Pedery said.

The Klamath was once the third most productive salmon river system on the West Coast, but it has declined as a result of misguided hatchery practices, overfishing, development and the loss of habitat to dams, mining and logging.

Fish returns have become so small that in 2006 commercial salmon fishing had to be nearly shut down in most of Oregon and California, causing a federal disaster declaration.

During a drought in 2001, irrigation was shut off to most of the Klamath Reclamation Project to protect threatened suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, the irrigation project's primary reservoir, and threatened Coho salmon in the Klamath River, the lake' natural outlet.

When irrigation was restored in 2002, about 70,000 adult Chinook salmon died in the river from diseases caused by low and warm water conditions.

After the commercial fishing collapse in 2006, the governors of Oregon and California called for a summit to find solutions, but it never occurred.