Settlement has long way to go before dams are gone

The “agreement” on removal of four Klamath River dams announced last week is a major step forward, but there are many steps left before there’s a done deal and each step is also going to be major — and difficult.

Removal of the dams is a key part of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which proposes to settle continual struggles over how to allocate water in the Basin. But it’s also a separate issue.

Some stakeholders are conflicted, taking one view on dam removal and a different one on the overall agreement.

 Last week’s breakthrough included a nonbinding “agreement in principle” by the states of Oregon and California, the federal government and PacifiCorp, which owns the four dams.

If everything falls into place, removal of the dams would begin by 2020. The expected cost is up to $450 million. The first 3½ years would be spent in due diligence studies.

Are California funds certain?

Many questions remain: Dams are a source of “green” power  — is it wise to get rid of them? Is dam removal fair to those involved? How solid can this be if it relies in part on a vote by California voters for $250 million in bonds? Is this anything more than a good business decision by PacifiCorp to rid itself of future liability for the dams? And is there anything wrong with that? What’s likely to happen in a change of presidential administrations?

The list of questions goes on and on.

While much depends on the answers, the agreement in principle gives Cabinet-level endorsement to dam removal, and implies the same endorsement for a wide-reaching process that’s aimed at ending contentious water wars in the Klamath Basin. Each year is a struggle over how to allocate water to irrigators and fisheries in the hourglass-shaped Basin that stretches from above Klamath Falls to the Pacific Ocean 300 or so miles away. By opening up fish habitat above the dams, their removal would also attempt to revive salmon runs that once were among the biggest in the nation.

The four dams that would be taken out are J.C. Boyle Dam in Klamath County,  the only one in Oregon; and Copco 1 and 2, and Iron Gate Dam, in California. Iron Gate is the farthest south, located northeast of Hornbrook, Calif.

For several years, PacifiCorp has been working through the process of relicensing the dams after a 50-year license ended. Efforts by irrigators, tribes and other interests to settle a wide range of major resource issues beyond the dams themselves grew out of that process.

It has also been clear that even if the dams were relicensed, operating them would cost PacifiCorp a lot more. Estimates of new fish ladders required have ranged up to $300 million and it’s likely there would have been substantial new costs to meet federal water standards.

This is a long, complicated process, and while dam removal is a foundation for the overall Basin restoration agreement, it is also a stand-alone issue.

A lot of things need to happen before dams are removed and the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement becomes fact.

No matter how difficult the remaining process is, however, the progress made public last week is a very big deal.


    Pat Bushey wrote today’s editorial.