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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Hope
for an ailing river
Register-Guard
Editorial
The agreement announced
Tuesday on the future of the
The agreement — forged
by the farmers, fishermen, American Indians, government agencies and
conservation groups whose views on the Klamath’s future long have
clashed — achieves the seemingly impossible: a broadly supported plan
to allocate the free-flowing waters of the river without dams.
Therein lies the hope.
And therein lies the caution.
That these longtime
adversaries, who for years battled over a finite supply of water for
farmers and the fate of fish protected by the Endangered Species Act,
settled on a $1 billion plan to restore the Klamath Basin is an
extraordinary accomplishment. If such an agreement, two years in the
making, is possible, there’s reason to hope the many remaining
obstacles can be overcome.
PacifiCorp, the owner of
the four aging hydroelectric dams that have stood on the river for a
century and supply power to 70,000 homes, has not agreed to their
removal. That’s cause for significant concern, even a whiff of
skepticism. Without the support of PacifCorp, the plan cannot succeed.
Yet it’s tantalizingly
possible that PacifiCorp will agree to remove the dams.
Federal energy regulators
are considering the utility’s application for a new 30-year to 50-year
license to operate the dams. The National Marine Fisheries Service has
said it will agree to the relicensing only if the utility builds fish
ladders to allow endangered salmon to reach waters above the dams.
The improvements are
expected to cost the utility $300 million, more than twice the estimated
$120 million cost of taking the dams down. PacifiCorp previously has
said it is willing to remove the dams if ratepayers don’t have to foot
the bill.
Then there’s the issue
of funding — no small matter at a time of squeezed federal budgets and
a looming recession. More than half the estimated billion-dollar cost of
the plan would come from money already being spent to mitigate the
impact of the dams. But Congress would have to provide another $500
million, most of it for salmon restoration, and
Finally, federal agencies
must determine whether the plan provides adequate water for salmon. Two
conservation groups, Oregon Wild and WaterWatch, which were not involved
in the final agreement, have criticized the new plan as a sweetheart
deal by the Bush administration that gives farmers the water they want
while placing salmon at risk of insufficient flows.
The Klamath’s woes are
many and complex. Its salmon runs, once the third largest on the West
Coast, have been devastated by excessive water diversions for
irrigation; by the dams that block migrating fish and turn the river
into unnaturally warm petri dish for fish-killing algae and bacteria; by
agricultural runoff; by unsound logging practices that contribute to
erosion; and by the loss of wetlands habitat. As a result, salmon
returns have become so small that the 2006 commercial season was all but
shut down off the
Even with its
shortcomings and risks, the new plan offers reason to believe the
Klamath can overcome its many problems eventually. The cooperation among
so many conflicting interests suggests the river blame game finally has
come to an end, and that a workable plan to save the Klamath is within
reach.
All that’s required is
the collective will and vision to finish the job.
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Source: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.view
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