Supervisors state case against dam removal on Klamath

By Paul Boerger
October 3, 2007

Mount Shasta Herald

The five members of the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors recently sent a letter to the governor expressing their opposition to removing dams owned by PacifiCorp on the Klamath River .

Supervisors also crafted an op-ed piece about their opposition to dam removal which was recently published in the Sacramento Bee and is also printed in this newspaper (see page B2).

The Klamath River , which runs from Oregon through California to the sea, has seen its share of controversy in the last five years including the cutting off of water to farmers in 2001 to save fish and diversion of water back to farmers in 2002 that was blamed on killing upwards of 35,000 fish.

Numerous lawsuits have also marked the Klamath legal landscape as the struggle for who gets the water and for what purpose continues unabated.

The latest issue to hit the Klamath are proposals to take down four hydroelectric dams operated by PacifiCorp as they have come for their 50 year relicensing.

The U.S. Department of Interior and NOAA Fisheries Service are requiring PacifiCorp to install fish ladders as part of the relicensing. PacifiCorp has agreed to do so, but has also said removal of the dams is a possibility. No formal commitment to bring the dams down has been made.

County supervisors unanimously signed on to a statement opposing the removal of the dams, citing environmental concerns, harm to the tax base, property value reduction and reduced recreation opportunities.

In their letter to the governor, Siskiyou's supervisors state, “While the underlying assumption is that dam removal will enhance our fishery resource, there are serious, and as yet unanswered questions as to what impact unleashing decades of unknown sediment currently lodged at the base of these dams will have on water quality... Moreover, removing carbon neutral, inexpensive hydro power without an equally environmentally acceptable and cheap replacement source of power is contrary to your leadership on global warming and energy initiatives.”

The supervisors suggest to the governor that “Installation of fish ladders, prudent water use, and other approaches would produce significant improvements in fishery conditions without the environmental risks and economic losses associated with dam removal.”

If the state goes forward with dam removal plans, the supervisors request in their letter to the governor that several issues be “satisfactorily addressed,” such as economic loss, economic opportunities, replacement power, rehabilitation/restoration, infrastructure, indemnification from any and all damages and a thorough environmental review.

The Klamath River serves as a migration route and spawning ground for salmon, on which Pacific coast fishermen are dependent, and it provides the Klamath Project with irrigation for farmers. The fishermen had their catch severely limited in 2006 as salmon numbers had reached critically low levels.

Native American tribes along the Klamath also have vested interests in the fishing for commercial use and subsistence.

The four PacifiCorp dams on the Klamath produce about 150 megawatts of power, enough to serve 70,000 customers. That power represents 1.7 percent of PacifiCorp's total output for 1.6 million customers in six Western states.

Irrigators would not be affected by dam removal as water flows would stay essentially the same. Fishing interests, however, claim diversion of water to farmers has reduced the salmon catch to 10 percent of what it was before the Klamath Project was begun at the turn of the century.

The Klamath Reclamation Project was begun in 1905 to reclaim land from lakes and marshland for farming. Water diversions continued unabated through the building of Iron Gate Dam, one of five on the Klamath River , in 1962. More than 230,000 acres of farmland are now irrigated by the Project in southern Oregon and Northern California .

Numerous conflicting scientific studies have not been able to definitively come up with a solution acceptable to all interests, but a recent report from the National Academy of Science recommended studying removing some of the dams as a possible way of restoring the eco-system to improve fish habitat.

Although they do not have the authority to require removing the dams, both the Pacific Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service have called for removing the dams, as have Native American tribes.

Removing the dams would not be a simple project as decades of silt backed up behind the dams would have to flushed downstream, be filtered out or somehow diverted. In addition, the loss of hydroelectric power in an era of concern about global warming is an issue.

If a decision is made to take down the dams, it could take up to 10 years and extensive environmental review to bring the dams down and deal with the silt.

Negotiations continue between PacifiCorp , U.S. Department of Interior, fisherman, farmers and Native American interest on relicensing the dams.

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Source:  http://www.mtshastanews.com/articles/2007/10/03/news/area_news/01supervisors_dam.txt