Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
November 14, 2008
1. Top Items -
Federal and state officials sign nonbinding deal to remove
The agreement has PacifiCorp spending $200 million,
Step taken toward removing
San Francisco Chronicle
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Federal and state officials sign nonbinding deal to remove
The agreement has PacifiCorp spending $200 million,
By Eric Bailey
Reporting from
But the deal, which could require fiscally strapped
The agreement in principal was signed by officials from the Department of the Interior, the states of
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the deal represents a "path forward" that he hopes will bring "a vision of peace, finally, in the
The river has been the focus of a long and volatile water war pitting the needs of farmers against the survival of endangered fish. Howls of protest erupted when authorities shut off irrigation deliveries during the drought of 2001. Restoration of those diversions in 2002 was blamed for the deaths of 70,000 adult salmon returning to spawn.
In the years since, conditions on the
Under the deal, PacifiCorp would contribute as much as $200 million toward dam removal and river restoration, with the money coming from boosted electricity rates for customers in the
Greg Abel, PacifiCorp chairman, said rates could rise as much as 2%. Meanwhile, the agreement gives the company protection from liability and allows time to find replacement power.
Backers of the deal expressed optimism, but noted that a number of tricky steps remain.
"We have not popped the champagne cork yet, but we have put a bottle on ice," said Rebecca Wodder, president of the nonprofit group American Rivers.
A final agreement is to be signed by June 30. That would launch an intense scientific and economic analysis to determine if dam removal is feasible and cost-effective, a process to be concluded with a decision by the Interior secretary in March 2012.
The deal also calls on Congress to approve a $1-billion restoration package for the river basin that won broad support in the region earlier this year. Some environmental groups say that accord bends too far to deliver abundant water and cheap power to farmers.
PacifiCorp, which is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has been under mounting pressure to demolish the dams.
West Coast lawmakers, among them Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, called for dam removal after the Klamath's salmon runs slumped deeply in 2006.
Last year, federal biologists required PacifiCorp to install fish ladders -- a tricky engineering feat expected to cost at least $300 million -- before the company could get a new license to continue operating the dams.
Foes of the agreement said it makes no sense to strike a deal weeks before Barack Obama becomes president.
"It's just nutty to commit to this with Bush heading out the door," said Tom Schlosser, an attorney for the Hoopa tribe of
He and other foes say PacifiCorp might exploit the agreement as a delaying tactic, arguing that the deal has loopholes that allow the company to back out as late as 2012.
In the meantime, they said, the agreement will essentially shut down
Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild said the deal also links dam removal to the $1-billion restoration package he believes favors farmers over fish.
"This has been a well-orchestrated campaign by the Bush administration taking advantage of a desire for dam removal to sell another package that's actually bad for salmon and wildlife," he said.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-klamath14-2008nov14,0,6605307.story
Step taken toward removing
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/14/08
By Peter Fimrite
(11-13) 20:34 PST --
The most powerful opponents of efforts to remove four dams that have blocked salmon migration on the Klamath River for the past century did an about-face Thursday and agreed in principle to a dam-removal plan along the
The proposal by Bush administration officials and PacifiCorp, the hydroelectric power company that distributes the water, would not remove the dams for 12 more years. It was nevertheless hailed by fishing groups, tribal representatives and environmentalists as the first big step in the largest dam-removal project in
"This is a huge milestone toward what would be the largest river-restoration effort ever undertaken," said Steve Rothert,
It has taken several years for the stakeholders to reach an agreement. Talks of removing the dams began in 2002 after a federally ordered change in water flow led to the die-off of 33,000 salmon.
But negotiations between
Dams have been blamed for much of the historic decline, but until now PacifiCorp and the federal government have fought efforts to remove the
The agreement announced Thursday does not commit to the removal of the dams. Instead, it provides a framework for the various interest groups, government agencies and businesses to collaborate on environmental and economic studies. The plan, as it stands, is to finalize the agreement in June and then conduct studies until 2012, when the secretary of the interior would make a final decision.
2020 dam removal target
"If the data collected in the next four years shows that removing the four dams is environmentally and economically prudent, then the target date for removal is 2020," said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who admitted during a news conference that he is normally opposed to the removal of hydroelectric power plants. "We had a directive from the president to have a collaborative solution, to do all we can to have an agreement that is visionary. ... But it takes time."
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said the fish may not have that much time.
"Frankly, I think we are giving them too much time," Grader said. "And this isn't even an agreement. PacifiCorp says it will consider taking these dams down. Well, under the Clean Water Act, they may have to take them down anyway."
The four mid-size dams were built along the Klamath's main stem starting in 1909, blocking off about 300 miles of salmon spawning habitat. Chinook once swam all the way up to
The hydroelectric dams warmed the river water, allowing destructive parasites and blooms of toxic, blue-green algae to contaminate the water even below the dams. Water diversions to cities and for agriculture exacerbated the problem, according to fishery biologists.
The number of salmon now in the river is less than 10 percent of the historic population, and the fish are continuing to disappear, according to biologists and fishery experts.
The Yurok and other tribes with rights to the river have been battling for years to get the dams removed. Fishermen and environmentalists rallied to their side, but the dam operator and farmers along the
In 2001, increased downriver flows by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to sustain salmon were resisted by farmers, who seized irrigation canal head gates in protest. The Bush administration sided with the farmers and slashed releases to the river, setting the stage for the 2002 die-off of 33,000 fish, a disaster that apparently kick-started settlement talks.
"We all have those images of what happened in the Klamath," Kempthorne said. "Nobody wants to see those images again, so we were motivated to find a solution."
Surcharge on customers
As part of the agreement, Paci-fiCorp has pledged to raise $200 million of the cost of removing of the dams by implementing a surcharge on its customers in
The utility would have to get certification from both states under the Clean Water Act to continue operating the dams, a potentially difficult proposition given the algae problems.
The tentative agreement would provide enough water for the salmon yet still provide irrigation water to
Solar and wind power would be considered for the 70,000 customers who would be effected by the loss of hydroelectric power from the dams that straddle the California-Oregon border.
"This is a tremendous milestone for the Klamath and our goal of working toward a healthy river," said Troy Fletcher, policy analyst with the Yurok Tribe. "We're looking forward to working with the company and with federal and state officials to get a final agreement."
Grader urged people to save the superlatives for the momentous occasion when something is actually done.
"Let's save the champagne for when the dams come down," he said, "not for when we agree to negotiate further and study this."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/14/MNA21441S7.DTL
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