Klamath River dam removal could increase power bills

by Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian

A bill that could increase many Oregonians' electricity bills by $1.50 a month to pay for removing Klamath River dams is scheduled for its second hearing in Salem today.

Senate Bill 76 is supported by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, PacifiCorp and most of the power players in the water war weary Klamath Basin, who are behind a larger regional compromise that includes this bill.
 

The text of the bill is here, and you can watch a senate committee's discussion scheduled for 3 p.m. today here. A vote may get pushed back until Tuesday.

It would create a fund of up to $180 million from a surcharge on PacifiCorp's Oregon ratepayers to go towards dam removal, which the governor, tribes, fishers, farmers and others say is a necessary step to resolving disputes over water and resources in the basin.

But industrial customers of PacifiCorp, which operates in six western states, say the bill unfairly saddles Oregon's PacifiCorp customers with the cost of taking out the four dams, which produce relatively cheap hydroelectric power used by people and business across its service area.

"The result of this bill will be to shift an unfair burden on Oregon ratepayers," said Melinda Davison, an attorney representing Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities.

If the bill passes out of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee, which could happen as early as today, and clears other hurdles to become law, the state of California still must create its own dam removal fund. And there are various other federal steps and analyses that would occur before the dams could come out, starting in 2020.

"The reality is that most of the benefits of the dam removal are going to go directly in the basin, and that's Oregon and California, so that's why the costs are being spread over those ratepayers," said Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, chair of the committee handling the bill in Salem.