Protesters want dams torn down 

By Steven Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune

May 1, 2007

Merv George of the Karuk tribe holds a photo of a traditional Karuk fisherman and his sons holding a Chinook King Salmon. Protesters on Tuesday at Rocky Mountain Power offices in Salt Lake City called for Klamath River dams to be removed. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune )

   A dozen protesters, including environmental activists and representatives of three Native American tribes from the Klamath River Basin , staged a demonstration Tuesday outside Rocky Mountain Power's headquarters in Salt Lake City . 

    The protesters stopped off in Utah on their way to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha , Neb. , later this week, where they want to ask billionaire Warren Buffett to tear down four dams on the Klamath River .

    They maintain that the hydroelectric dams, which were built from 1917 to 1962, have created an environmental disaster.

    "Those dams have destroyed one of the great salmon rivers of the world," said Tony Bogar, a spokesman for Friends of the River, which hopes to restore the waterway that runs through the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon-California border.

    The dams are operated by PacifiCorp, which does business in Utah as Rocky Mountain Power. Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, acquired PacifiCorp last year.

    Bogar said the protesters hope to convince Buffett that tearing down the dams, which are in the process of being relicensed by the federal government, will save PacifiCorp as much as $100 million a year.

    "It will be a lot cheaper to tear them down than to build the fish ladders that will be required before they are relicensed," Bogar said.

    Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said PacifiCorp is working with up to 26 different groups that are interested in the dams and the relicensing process. "We're trying to reach a consensus, but if everyone can't reach an agreement, the federal licensing process will achieve a resolution."

    It could be several years, however, before the licensing process handled by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is concluded.

    The protesters, including representatives from the Karuk, Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, argue that the dams generate less than 1 percent of PacifiCorp's electricity sales.

    Still, the company contends that those dams, which generate enough power to serve more than 70,000 homes, are emission-free sources of electricity that could be difficult to replace.

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Source:  http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_5797372