A New Way Forward On Removing Klamath River Dams
The Copco 1 Dam on the Klamath River. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
Several environmental groups are coming together with a new proposal for removing four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River in Oregon and California.
It’s response to an earlier agreement announced in September by the Interior Department. While that agreement laid the foundation for dam removal, many environmental groups were not satisfied with it.
Today’s proposal is designed to move things along much, much faster.
The new coalition is calling itself the Klamath Conservation Partners, and here’s what it’s proposing.
Remove Dams Sooner: The group says a plan to remove the dams should be completed and submitted to Congress by 2012. That speeds up dam removal by several years. The federal agreement gives the Interior Secretary until 2012 to decide if removing dams is a good idea.
As far as the Klamath Conservation Partners are concerned, that’s a no-brainer. They say “of course” removing dams is good for salmon, let’s get to it as soon as possible.
How To Pay For It: The cost of removing dams is estimated at $450 million. Oregon share’s is $200 million, and during the last legislative session a bill was passed to collect the money from customers of Pacific Power. That’s the utility that owns the dams. California’s share is $250 million and that state is trying to raise the money through bonds. What the Partners want is a promise from the feds to pay for whatever Oregon and California don’t.
Degrees of Separation: In the federal agreement, removing dams is linked to yet another deal for managing water in the Klamath Basin. The coalition says the water management deal is a bad one, claiming it favors agricultural uses at the expense of salmon and other wildlife. This new proposal calls for separating the agreements so that dam removal can go ahead on its own.
“By setting aside some of the more controversial issues in the Basin, we can finally let dam removal sink or swim on its own,” says Steve Pedery with Oregon Wild. “We are confident an improved hydro deal can swim – and so will the salmon.”
The Klamath River used to be one of the salmon producing powerhouses of the West Coast. But over the past few years, salmon runs have fallen to precariously low levels. A collapse of the Klamath salmon run led to a major closure of the commercial fishing season in 2007. That was followed by another bad year, and major closure, in 2008. The runs began to rebound in 2009, but not enough to save the commercial season the California and Southern Oregon coasts.
