Agreement is milestone in efforts
to restore one of the biggest salmon runs
The Copco I Dam spans the Klamath
River Aug. 21, outside Hornbrook, Calif. PacifiCorp, owner of this and
three other small hydroelectric dams on the Klamath, announced
Wednesday, Sept. 30, the terms of a tentative agreement to remove the
dams to help struggling salmon runs.
By The Associated Press
Story Published: Oct 2, 2009
Story Updated: Oct 2, 2009
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) – The utility that
owns four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River has agreed to
terms for their removal, a key milestone in efforts to restore what
was once the third-biggest salmon run on the West Coast and end
decades of battles over scarce water.
PacifiCorp,
the states of California and Oregon, American Indian tribes, federal
agencies, irrigators and conservation groups announced the draft
agreement Sept. 30. It is expected to be signed by the end of the
year.
Removal of the dams is not scheduled to start until 2020 and depends
on funding for the removal, a federal determination that it will
actually help salmon and is in the public interest, and
authorization from Congress.
“This agreement marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Klamath
River and for the communities whose health and way of life depend on
it,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. “Hats off
to all the stakeholders who have worked so hard to find common
ground on one of the most challenging water issues of our time.”
Removal costs to be shared
PacifiCorp will not bear the estimated $450 million cost of removing
the dams. Oregon has approved $180 million in surcharges on state
ratepayers. Another $250 million depends on California approving
general obligation bonds.
“We are not in the business of taking out dams, but the Klamath
Basin crisis is a unique situation,” Dean S. Brockbank, vice
president and general counsel of PacifiCorp, said. “We have been
able to arrive at a settlement and a business deal that is in the
best interests of our customers because it minimizes costs and
guards against the risks of the alternatives.”
The turning point came in May 2008, when an aide to former Interior
Secretary Dirk Kempthorne summoned Brockbank to a meeting at a U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service training center in Shepherdstown, W.Va.
They were locked down for a week with representatives of the Bush
administration and the governors of Oregon and California, Brockbank
said.
They “made it very clear from a public policy point of view that
they did not want these dams relicensed,” Brockbank said. “Once that
became abundantly clear, we shifted our framework from relicensing
to a settlement involving a possible dam removal framework.”
Michael Carrier, policy director for Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski,
said the meeting was a “watershed moment” that gave the governor’s
office a new understanding of what was at stake for PacifiCorp.
The four dams – J.P. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2, and Iron Gate –
together produce enough electricity for 70,000 customers.
“When the Klamath dams come down, it will be the biggest dam removal
project the world has ever seen,” Steve Rothert, California director
for the conservation group American Rivers, said in a statement. “We
will be able to watch on a grand scale as a river comes back to
life.”
Water wars a problem in Klamath Basin
Charles
Bonham, California director for
Trout Unlimited,
said the next key to successfully restoring salmon to the upper
Klamath Basin will be a final agreement among farmers, American
Indian tribes, conservation groups and others to ensure salmon
restoration will not come at the expense of farming.
“We don’t think we will be successful putting salmon back where they
haven’t been for 100 years unless we have a good, solid relationship
with the landowner and farming communities,” he said. “We want
salmon to be met in Klamath Falls with open arms, not pitchforks.”
Water wars have long simmered in the Klamath Basin, where the first
of the dams and a federal irrigation project built in the early 20th
century turned the natural water distribution upside down, draining
marshes and lakes and tapping rivers for electricity to put water on
dry farmland that grows potatoes, horseradish, grain, alfalfa and
cattle.
A drought in 2001 forced irrigation water to be shut off to sustain
threatened and endangered fish. When the irrigation was restored the
next year, tens of thousands of salmon died trying to spawn in the
Klamath River, which was too low and too warm to sustain them.
Besides blocking salmon, the dams raise water temperatures to levels
unhealthy for fish. California water authorities have been taking a
hard look at the toxic algae produced by the dam’s reservoirs, and
river advocates have sued PacifiCorp to fix the algae problem.
Goal is environmental restoration
Pressure
has been building since PacifiCorp applied for a new 50-year federal
operating license in 2004 and made no provision for fish passage,
which stops at Iron Gate near the Oregon-California border.
California and Oregon’s governors pressed for dam removal after West
Coast commercial salmon fisheries collapsed in 2006 because of
declines in Klamath River returns, triggering a disaster
declaration.
Final approval of the dam removal agreement is key to authorization
of a separate agreement to spend $1 billion over the next decade on
environmental restoration in the Klamath Basin.
Some conservation groups were not happy that the deal would allow
farming to continue on the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake national
wildlife refuges, preventing restoration of wetlands that would
contribute to better water quality, and guaranteed irrigation levels
for farmers in the upper basin.
“We really can’t afford to allow dam removal be linked to making
other environmental problems in the basin worse,” said Steve Pedery,
conservation director of Oregon Wild in Portland.
Copyright
2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved.