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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Klamath
dams study broke law, agency says
Relicensing
- NOAA Fisheries says an energy panel should have looked at removing all
4 dams
JEFF
BARNARD
The Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission should analyze removing all four hydroelectric
dams on the
In comments on the
regulatory commission's initial look at relicensing the aging dams, NOAA
Fisheries said the commission's approach in a draft environmental impact
statement violated federal law requiring analysis of a full range of
alternatives.
Meanwhile, PacifiCorp,
the Portland-based utility that owns the four dams straddling the
Oregon-California border, said it has revised its proposal to truck
adult and juvenile fish around all four dams.
The new proposal calls
for modifying the four dams to allow young fish migrating downstream to
swim past the dams on their own. A fish ladder would be built to allow
adults to swim over J.C. Boyle Dam, the farthest upstream and the top
electricity producer.
Adult salmon returning to
spawn would be trucked around the three downstream dams, and some would
be trucked around J.C. Boyle.
PacifiCorp, which serves
1.6 million customers in six Western states, is seeking a new operating
license for the
Friday was the deadline
for responses to the energy commission's initial look at what changes
would be required to relicense the dams.
The commission must
balance the value of the power generated by the dams against the cost to
fish. NOAA Fisheries had advised the fish are more valuable than the
power.
FERC's draft environmental impact statement looked at removing the two tallest dams, building fish ladders and trucking fish around the dams.
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Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/