New plan to remove Klamath River dams without help from Congress

February 02, 2016

WASHINGTON — Federal and state officials in California and Oregon said Tuesday that they had reached an agreement to bypass Congress to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River to solve a chronic water dispute among farmers, fishermen and American Indian tribes.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, an ardent environmentalist who represents parts of the river basin, said the demolitions of the four dams combined would constitute the largest such dam removal project yet.

“It’s a big deal, but it’s also something they have to do,” Huffman said, referring to state and federal officials and PacifiCorp, the utility that owns the dams. The dams “have wrecked a really significant salmon and steelhead river that sustains communities and tribes that I represent.”

The dam removals had been part of a major settlement among water users in the Klamath Basin in Northern California and southern Oregon that was reached after more than eight years of complex and contentious negotiations. The pact was widely considered a model for resolving water disputes.

Congress needed to sign off on the deal last year, but the GOP-led House failed to act because Republicans widely oppose dam removals.

Now, California, Oregon, PacifiCorp, federal agencies and Klamath tribes will ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decommission the dams. If the commission, which oversees hydropower, acts, farmers, a key GOP constituency on water issues, may not get the same assurances of water and power deliveries they had secured under the original settlement. The parties to the new agreement said they hoped to find ways to accommodate irrigators.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called the new plan “an important initial step as we work toward a comprehensive set of actions to advance the long-term progress and sustainability for tribes, fisheries and water users across the Klamath Basin.”

The Klamath conflict drew national attention when federal agencies in a 2001 drought cut water deliveries to farmers, who then threatened to use force to restore them. The George W. Bush administration reversed course the following year, leading to a massive fish die-off.

The cost of the dam removals could be as high as $500 million. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has already set aside $250 million for California’s share. Oregon, PacifiCorp and the federal agencies would chip in.

The four dams are used mainly to generate electricity rather than store water. The oldest was built in 1918. Dams were built throughout the West in the past century to provide power and store water for farmers and cities, but they create immense environmental damage, particularly to fish.

PacifiCorp faced a daunting relicensing process that would have required constructing fish ladders and other alterations that could have cost nearly as much as removing the dams. Local tribes that saw the water guarantees under the original deal as too generous to farmers have united behind the new plan, Huffman said.

Huffman said removal “is not going to be cheap” but opponents face an uphill fight.

“When you have the owner of the dams and the two states where dams exist and the key federal agencies all going shoulder to shoulder and requesting decommissioning, that’s pretty good news for those who want dam removal and river restoration,” Huffman said. “And I think it’s a pretty tall order for those who want to find a way to stop it.”

The new plan is an agreement-in-principle among the two states, the Interior Department and PacifiCorp that will be made final by Feb. 29, proponents said in a statement. The plan would then be submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for public comment.

If approved, PacifiCorp would transfer ownership of the dams to a “non-federal agency” that would remove the dams in 2020.


Source: by Carolyn Lochhead