Federal report: Keep dams, aid fish habitat

By Dylan Darling (Contact)
November 18, 2007

Federal energy officials have recommended that the commission weighing the fate of power dams on the Klamath River leave the dams in place while improving river conditions for fish.

“There are some mitigations that have to be done,” said Mary O’Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Those recommendations in the environmental impact statement released Friday for the Klamath hydroelectric project include trapping salmon and hauling them upriver in trucks rather than adding fish ladders. Cost of installing fish ladders on the project’s five dams on the river, most of which are in far northern Siskiyou County , has been tagged at $250 million.

While trapping and hauling the fish could cost less than building fish ladders, critics of the dams say the economics suggest another solution — get rid of them.

And, they say the FERC report supports their stance.

“It confirms what a lot of people and studies have said — the dams are not worth keeping,” said Glen Spain, northwest director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations.

In an analysis of the costs with different options for the project, FERC found that its recommendations would result in an annual $20 million deficit for the project while removing them would cost $7 million a year.

Keeping the dams while making improvements for fish along the river, outlined in plans previously submitted by PacifiCorp, would result in a $17 million annual profit for the Portland-based power company, according to the FERC report.

While PacifiCorp has just started reviewing the hefty document, a company spokeswoman said it favors keeping the dams in the river.

“It does seem to confirm that the project can be operated responsibly for both fish and our customers,” said Jan Mitchell, a PacifiCorp spokesman.

The company is trying to get a new 50-year license for the project from FERC. That decision from the commission could still be years out, she said.

“This is just one step in a very long process,” Mitchell said.

Comments

Posted by richsteele on November 18, 2007 at 7:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Fish or people that is the choice. Getting rid of a clean power source today is not the option.

Posted by greglani on November 18, 2007 at 8:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)

There are 4 H's affecting salmon. Hydropower, Hatcheries, Harvest and lastly Habitat. Our nation needs the clean Hydropower. The biggest impacts are likely the fisheries in the ocean when there are ships with nets 20 to 40 miles long trailing behind the ships. Even if the dams are removed to improve the Habitat, the number of fish may not increase because of the Harvest out in the Ocean.

Posted by DaveN on November 18, 2007 at 9:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Who needs to eat fish anyway? We can always fry up some artificial fish made from soybeans. Yum!!!

Posted by bobewok on November 18, 2007 at 11:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)

We can import all the fish we need from the China fish farms. Wall Mart will supply the fish.

Posted by anonymousagain on November 18, 2007 at 12:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It doesn't have to be a choice between fish and people's survival. It is not a solid black or white issue. Using that sort of logic, we can say it's either the survival of the earth or survival of man, so we should destroy all of our resources.

It's not like that at all.

That would be like saying we need to build homes, so it's either we cut down all the forests or we all live outside.

There is such a thing as managing a resource or ecosystem, to where both sides will be okay.

I am not willing to sacrifice the Klamath Salmon run for a few old dams that the power companies are saying are not very efficient or useful anyways.

Remove one or two dams, and put up fish ladders on the remaining ones.

Posted by kelly on November 18, 2007 at 1:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)

This is a LOCAL Redding-area issue, where the same question will be considered by the FERC with regard to the Kilarc-Cow Creek Hydropower license for facilities on the Old Cow and South Cow Creeks in Whitmore. PG&E has decided to surrender it's license and is proposing to remove the diversion dams, but the community is working very hard to avoid having valuable facilities demolished. More information is available at www.savekilarc.org or by e-mail to info@savekilarc.org, AND there will be a community meeting in Whitmore THIS Tuesday evening November 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the Grace Community Church just east of Whitmore School .

Posted by tinman12 on November 18, 2007 at 3:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The Indians feel the dams are impinging on their fish and gill netting ritual. Unfortunately they gill net thousands of fish and sell the roe to the Japanese for a nice profit. Kind of like a casino in a canoe.

Posted by taxmancometh on November 18, 2007 at 10:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Can you imagine breeching those dams and letting decades of buildup down the river? They only thought they saw a fish kill before. The enviro nutjobs would be responsible for one of the biggest fish slaughters in history not to mention the potential of killing off that river for decades. Then who's on the hook for all the restoration?

Its called a hatchery folks. They work, really.

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