September 26, 2006
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission staff has recommended gradually reintroducing
salmon to reaches of the Klamath River blocked by four hydroelectric dams,
rejecting advice from federal fisheries scientists to remove the dams.
The recommendation came Monday in a draft environmental impact statement on
PacifiCorp’s application for a new 50-year operating license on dams
straddling the Oregon-California border that have blocked salmon from hundreds
of miles of spawning habitat for nearly a century.
FERC’s draft analysis does not look at removing all four dams, an alternative
recommended by NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency that oversees restoring
dwindling salmon runs, and favored by Indian tribes, commercial fishermen,
conservation groups and the California Department of Fish and Game.
The river’s struggling salmon runs triggered a near shutdown of commercial
salmon fishing on the West Coast this summer that cost commercial fishermen $16
million, and forced severe cutbacks of irrigation water to Klamath Basin farmers
in 2001.
Last March, NOAA Fisheries mandated free-swimming passage of salmon over all
four dams, both spawning adults and migrating juveniles, which would require the
construction of fish ladders and fish screens around turbines. The agency cannot
demand dam removal, but it recommended taking out all four dams as the best
course for salmon.
FERC must balance the value of the power generated by the dams against the cost
to fish when considering a new operating license. NOAA Fisheries also advised
that the fish were more valuable than the power.
Steve Edmondson, Northern California habitat supervisor for NOAA Fisheries, said
the agency was likely to tell FERC it should consider removing all four dams
when it produces the final environmental impact statement.
“FERC has to reconcile those things,” he said.
The analysis does consider removing the two tallest of the dams, Iron Gate and
Copco 1, which present the greatest obstacles to restoring salmon, while leaving
Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle. That would open up additional spawning habitat and cost
PacifiCorp $5.7 million in lost annual power revenues.
It also looks at combining the FERC staff recommendations with the NOAA
Fisheries mandate to restore free-swimming fish passage. Combined with NOAA
Fisheries recommendations to divert more water from dam turbines to the river
for fish, that would cost PacifiCorp $28.8 million in annual power revenues.
The FERC staff recommendation, which allows some extra water for fish and
proposes capturing salmon and trucking them around some of the dams while
monitoring to see how they adapt to each expansion of habitat, would cost
PacifiCorp $7.3 million in lost annual revenue.
PacifiCorp, the Portland-based utility that owns the dams, wanted to study
FERC’s recommendations before commenting on them, said spokesman Dave Kvamme.
“It’s a massive document,” Kvamme said. “We’re going to be spending a
few days to determine what it means. The other thing worth noting is that it’s
still in draft form. The final EIS is likely to be different than the draft
after all parties have commented on it.”
But Indian tribes that depend on Klamath salmon, and California commercial
fishermen both said FERC’s approach was bad for salmon.
“FERCs draft document disregards sound science, the needs of our communities
and disregards federal law,” said Leaf Hillman, vice chairman of the Karuk
Tribe, which abandoned its traditional First Salmon Ceremony because so few
spring chinook now return to the river.
Hillman argued the recommendations violate Federal Power Act mandates to follow
the recommendations of NOAA Fisheries, as well as the federal government’s
treaty responsibilities to maintain salmon runs for the tribes.
Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which
represents California commercial salmon fishermen, said the FERC recommendations
were flawed because they were issued before a federal administrative law judge
decided whether PacifiCorp could disregard some or all of NOAA fisheries’
mandates. That ruling is expected this week.
“They seem to be overly concerned about the cost to PacifiCorp, but ignoring
the cost to society as a whole by keeping the dams’ stranglehold on a river
and destroying very economically important tribal and commercial fisheries,”
Spain said.
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Source: http://www.newsreview.info/article/20060926/NEWS/60926002/-1/news