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Klamath hydro players put cards on table
Tam Moore
Capital
Press April 12, 2006
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Major
players in the ongoing Klamath River saga last week weighed in for
either forcing PacifiCorp to remove hydroelectric dams or build fish
passage facilities to restore over 200 river miles of habitat blocked
since 1918.
The
deluge of official filings came March 27 at the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. PacifiCorp, owner of the 151-megawatt generating
system, seeks a license renewal on most of the facilities. All except a
small plant on Spring Creek in Northern California depend to a large
extent on water stored by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Klamath
Project, which irrigates around 200,000 acres of cropland, pasture and
federal wildlife refuges straddling the California-Oregon border about
175 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.
“Whether through dam removals or implementation of our fishway
prescriptions, successful reintroduction of anadromous fish into the
historic habitats above Iron Gate Dam will substantially enhance the
restoration of struggling Pacific salmon stocks,” NMFS regional
administrator Rodney McInnis said in the March 27 filing with FERC.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which provides primary staffing to
the Klamath Fisheries Task Force created by a 1986 law, filed proposed
conditions mirroring the NMFS paper. Three American Indian tribes – one
from the upper basin, two in the lower basin – issued a press release
supporting the federal conditions and continued talks among parties.
“To obtain resolution in this matter, we will need the political support
of our state and federal representatives,” said Leaf Hillman of the
mid-river Karuk Tribe. “Our aim is to keep the farmers farming and the
fishermen fishing.”
A 1991 federal Klamath Fisheries Task Force report said underlying
reasons for salmon and steelhead declines are:
• Construction and operation of the hydroelectric system dams;
• Stream diversions for irrigation and wildlife refuges; and
• “Adverse” land-use practices in the timbered watersheds.
While many of the recommendations FERC received are little more than
requests, under federal law, NMFS and FWS can require fishery-related
conditions in relicensing hydro projects. The two fishery agency filings
are called “preliminary” and make reference to negotiations under way
that could alter actual mandatory license conditions.
At least three closed-door “settlement” conferences are scheduled by
parties in the next six weeks.
“I am convinced that a locally driven, basinwide approach holds
significant hope of finding a comprehensive solution to the river’s
problems,” Steve Thompson, regional FWS manager, said in a prepared
statement.
The
lowest PacifiCorp dams – Iron Gate, Copco 1 and Copco 2 – don’t have any
fish-passage facilities. In a consultant’s paper prepared for the
relicensing, the company estimated it would cost around $200 million to
build fish ladders or construct a “trap and haul” system around those
dams. On top of that, biologists studying salmon survival questioned
temperature and water quality in the reservoirs. They said it may not be
possible to sustain anadromous fish runs even if up-and-downstream
passage is assured.
The J.C. Boyle Dam, built in 1958, has fish-passage facilities, but they
don’t conform to current standards. At Keno Dam, a water regulating
facility below Klamath Reclamation Project diversions and return flow
sites, state and federal agencies want modification to passageways.
PacifiCorp wants to relinquish responsibility by removing it from FERC
jurisdiction. A 2005 federal project installed new fish ladders at the
farthest upstream obstruction, Link River Dam, where PacifiCorp plans to
decommission hydro facilities.
Another upstream dam in the Klamath system, near the town of Chiloquin
on the Sprague River, is slated for removal after this irrigation season
and is not part of the PacifiCorp system.
California’s Department of Fish and Game objects to removing Keno Dam
from FERC jurisdiction, saying waters held behind the regulating dam
“significantly degrade water quality” with effects seen 200 miles
downstream.
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Fish passage facilities around Copco 1 and three other PacifiCorp
hydroelectric generating facilities below the federal Klamath
Reclamation Project are sought by two federal agencies as a condition of
renewing the power company licenses that expired this month.
PacifiCorp, holder of the Klamath hydroelectric license, has a team of
experts pouring through the massive documents filed last week with FERC.
The company has until May 15 to respond.
Spokesman Dave Kvamme said the applicant can challenge any of the
material facts used to justify proposed conditions. It can also offer
alternatives to any conditions.
But Kvamme said the parallel track of settlement talks among parties
offers an opportunity for resolving many of the conditions proposed last
week. In past PacifiCorp license renewals, settlement talks rather than
the formal FERC process led to resolution of issues.
Bottom line, Kvamme said, are conditions with practical solutions that
can be implemented and that pass review by the California and Oregon
public utility commissions as beneficial to PacifiCorp’s rate payers.
The Klamath project generates enough electricity in a year to light
about 70,000 homes. That’s
more than the number of customers – residential, commercial and
agricultural – in the far Northern California part of
PacifiCorp’s service area.
For the entire PacifiCorp system, Kvamme said, Klamath hydro is
significant because “it is low-cost power. Those facilities were bought
and paid for a long time
ago.”
– TAM MOORE |
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The California filing puts completion of Iron Gate, the downstream
dam, in 1962, as start of decline for Klamath spring-run chinook. The
river was blocked with completion of Copco 1, upstream from Iron Gate,
in 1918.
PacifiCorp pays for a large fish hatchery just below Iron Gate, which
was built as part of the 1962 project to mitigate for loss of upstream
habitat. The CDFG wants FERC to make continued operation of the
hatchery a condition of license renewal. In a typical year about
20,000 adult chinook return to the hatchery.
California wants a set of minimum flows below Keno and the downstream
dams, and it asks FERC to adopt flows below Iron Gate using a 2001
study by Utah State University hydrologist Thomas Hardy. The
controversial Hardy flows have been under revision, and in late 2005
yet another draft of Hardy flows circulated among agencies.
California’s Siskiyou County, where most of the hydro project is
located, told FERC it does not support dam removal.
Instead, it joins in asking conditions that improve water quality.
“We do not believe it is either prudent environmental or energy policy
to eliminate low-cost, renewable electrical power generation,” says
the response filed by attorneys for Siskiyou County.
The Yurok Tribe, which has a reservation near the mouth of the
Klamath, took a contrary view to the whole process. It recommended
that FERC flat deny the PacifiCorp license and order removal of all
dams. As an alternate, the Yuroks propose a 10-year license with
removal of dams complete by expiration of the shorter permit.
“The benefits of the project simply do not compare with the tremendous
costs to the public, and for most of the impacts there are no
available protection, mitigation or enhancements,” concludes the Yurok
filing made by Howard McConnell, chairman of the tribal council.
The Quartz Valley Tribe, with ancestral lands in the Scott Valley, a
tributary of the Klamath west of Yreka, Calif., also proposes removal
of the PacifiCorp dams. “Decommissioning these four dams is the only
reasonable remedy,” the tribe filing said.
- Friday, April 7, 2006
Tam Moore is based in Medford, Ore. His e-mail address is tmoore@capitalpress.com.
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Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
Phone (541) 883-6100
FAX (541) 883-8893
kwua@cvcwireless.net |