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| Phil
Detrich, field supervisor of U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Klamath office, has put
off a December Endangered Species Act
consultation over Klamath hydroelectric dams. |
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Klamath consultation
in doubt
Fishery
agencies demand specifics
Tam Moore
Capital Press Staff Writer
November 24, 2006
Two federal
fishery agencies have told the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission it needs to be more specific before starting any
Klamath River consultation under the Endangered Species Act.
On top of that, in filings last week with the FERC, the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation warned the agency that it seems to be
considering ordering downstream flows that exceed existing
water rights for the four hydroelectric dams that PacifiCorp
wants to license.
PacifiCorp has a 225-cubic-foot-per-second Oregon water
right for power generation at Keno, Ore., where diversion
begins for the dams.
The FERC in early October proposed a round of consultations
between state and federal agencies to satisfy ESA
requirements. They are scheduled for Dec. 12-14 in Redding,
Calif. The filings by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
the National Marine Fisheries Service and Reclamation put
that part of the complex relicensing process in doubt.
PacifiCorp's 50-year license to operate expired early this
year. The power company is operating on a year-to-year
extension while new license conditions are negotiated.
"The (Fish and Wildlife) Service has determined that
insufficient information has been provided to initiate
formal consultation because the proposed action for the
license is not fully developed," wrote Phil Detrich,
field supervisor of the USFWS office in Yreka, Calif.
The FERC last week began a round of public hearings on a
draft environmental impact statement that gives four
alternatives for issuing a Klamath license. Hearings end
Nov. 29, and the final EIS is expected by April.
However, under federal law, it's up to the five-member
commission to pick terms for the license. To complicate
things, private talks between stakeholders continue, and
they could yield conditions different from those in the
draft EIS.
"Formal consultation of proposed actions that are not
well defined or developed would require an unnecessary
commitment of agency time and resources," Detrich
wrote.
He also reminded FERC staff that it issued the draft EIS
without waiting for an administrative law judge's findings
on factual issues challenged by PacifiCorp.
Toby Freeman, in charge of PacifiCorp's relicensing team,
said two weeks ago that the "high profile" of the
Klamath gives it special attention with the FERC. In 2001
ESA considerations upstream of all but two small generation
plants not part of PacifiCorp's application led Reclamation
to renege on water delivery contracts to 1,100 farms; the
next summer tens of thousands of returning salmon died of
disease while "kegged up" in the lower river; then
this year anticipated low returns of fall chinook led to a
near-total ban on commercial salmon fishing of 700 miles of
coast off Oregon and California.
Klamath coho salmon, under ESA protection since 1997, are at
the heart of NMFS biological opinions controlling downstream
discharge of water released from Reclamation's Klamath
Project reservoirs.
Both NMFS and the FWS want fish passage restored above the
lowest dam, favoring construction of fishways or removal of
the dams. FERC staff proposed a less-expensive "trap
and haul" system that would carry migrating fish around
the dams by truck.
In the upper basin, the FWS gives ESA protection to two
kinds of sucker fish native to basin lakes and streams, plus
bald eagles, Northern spotted owls, bull trout, a frog and
several plants threatened with extinction. Reservoir levels
are dictated by a sucker fish biological opinion.
Rodney McInnis, the regional NMFS administrator, told the
FERC, "There is no way to tell how much of the staff
(proposed) alternative will end up as part of the proposed
action." He filed a 15-page letter with copies to
dozens of Klamath stakeholders.
The bottom line is McInnis' insistence that the ESA requires
a description of "the action" to be considered,
not a suite of alternate actions. NMFS also said federal law
required additional consultations, beyond the ESA, because
the Klamath is home to several migratory fish in addition to
coho salmon.
Tam Moore is based in Medford, Ore. His e-mail address is
tmoore@capital press.com.
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