FERC grants Klamath rehearing; judge orders flows
Tam
Moore
Capital Press Staff Writer
March 31, 2006
Two
legal developments early this week will have an impact on Klamath basin
irrigators and on people who look to the big river as an historic source of
salmon.
In her long-awaited injunction that adopts interim flows for the Klamath
downstream of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Project, federal Judge Saundra
Armstrong ordered Reclamation and NOAA Fisheries to start Endangered Species
Act consultation on the project biological opinion. She faulted the fish
agency for failing to start up consultation based on new scientific
information presented to the court. She also told Reclamation to give the fish
flows priority and to cut back irrigation deliveries if they cause less than
flows set in table 9 of the 2002 biological opinion.
In Washington, D.C., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tentatively
granted a rehearing to a U.S. Department of Interior petition to keep
irrigators’ power contracts tied to any extension of the current Klamath
hydroelectric license. In January, FERC ruled the power contract was separate
from the license renewal sought by PacifiCorp. The 50-year license expires in
mid-April. Because settlement talks aren’t complete, many observers expect
the FERC will grant a one-year extension of the license.
“Everybody is tired of litigation,” said Glen Spain, a representative of
the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, lead plaintiff in
the long-running suit Armstrong ruled on. He said there’s a sense among
parties to Klamath resource disputes that “this is all interconnected and
there are solutions possible.”
Spain said he’s confident the FERC license settlement talks will be
productive.
“After years of uncertainty, we finally know what needs to be done for water
for fish, and farmers and fishermen can plan accordingly,” Spain said in a
telephone interview.
He said that, for irrigators, this is a year of good water supply, giving some
breathing room while the federal agencies complete their new Endangered
Species Act consultations.