Farmers tear up as Klamath dams are torn down

By Don Curlee

Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register

March 10, 2008 

The commitment by the agricultural community to accommodate a broad range of divergent interests has been shown in the forging of a recent settlement to ensure continued reliability of water supplies in the Klamath Basin .

Sitting at the table in the 3 1/2 years of discussions were irrigators (mostly farmers), fish interests, American Indian tribes, a major power generator, environmentalists, and federal, state and county agencies from three counties in California and Oregon .

The trigger for the whole exercise was expiration of the power company's 50-year federal authority to continue operations at the dams.

Farmers and irrigators stayed with the laborious negotiations to protect their water and ratepayer interests, knowing that any legal action growing out of the process was sure to find its way to a fish-loving judge and a negative ruling.

Remember that serious interruptions in the flow of water through the basin occurred in 2001 when water for irrigation was shut off to maintain a level in the Klamath River high enough for fish to survive.

The state and federal representatives helping construct the new agreement came from fish and wildlife, environmental, water distribution, tribal and power generation and distribution interests. It was a bureaucrat's paradise.

Everyone at the table had reason to believe that at least one other seated there was, if not an enemy, an adversary.

Much of the coverage of the settlement has hinged around the painful agreement to destroy four dams on the Klamath River , three that generate power. Diversion of water for agricultural use does not depend on these dams. The company that operates them is not opposed as long as it does not have to pay to have them torn down. It hopes to substitute wind and solar means for power generation to replace the hydro units at the dams.

However, farmers will not be pleased if the dams come down because they believe they and other ratepayers will carry the cost of constructing whatever power generation facilities replace them.

Some of the other parties at the table may have similar reservations. Many see the demolition as a gigantic waste.

Two dams that store water for irrigation will remain in place. Fish ladders have been discussed repeatedly as a solution for at least one part of the puzzle. At one location, a fish ladder two miles long was suggested. Without the dams the ladders won't be necessary, eliminating one enormous cost.

The dam across the Klamath at the lower end of Oregon 's Klamath Lake is scheduled to remain. Even before the dam was built a natural reef backed up water enough to form the lake. The dam is actually lower than the reef was.

Both Oregon and California have intense interest in the Klamath and the agreements involving it. One of the dams to be razed is in Oregon , and three are in California .

Below Klamath Lake and Klamath Falls the river flows into California , joins the Shasta River north of Yreka and continues westward toward the Pacific Ocean . Halfway there it turns southward sharply, joins the Salmon River first, then the Trinity, after which it flows northward to empty into the ocean south of Crescent City .

Tearing down dams looks like foolishness on the surface, just as spending hundreds of millions to restore the San Joaquin River appears to many. But farmers are finding that sitting around the table with the enemy, and keeping him (or them) occupied, is better than having to live under the rules the enemy creates in their absence.

  Don Curlee is a freelance writer who specializes in agricultural issues. Write to him at Don Curlee-Public Relations, 457 Armstrong Ave. , Clovis , CA 93612 .  

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