Pacificorp Klamath Dam renewal Licence

[BrianMaguire]

No Ladders!


http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=64817

PacifiCorp seeks new license for Klamath River dams

By JEFF BARNARD
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - PacifiCorp's application for a new operating license for hydroelectric dams on the upper Klamath River does not include the piece long sought by Indian tribes, fishermen, environmentalists and the state of Oregon: allowing salmon upstream.

PacifiCorp licensing project manager Todd Olson said computer modeling so farshows it would cost an estimated $100 million to install fish ladders and screen turbines on the four lowest of the six dams to allow salmon to pass. And even that would not automatically result in a self-sustaining salmon population within the area of the dams, he said.
The computer model has not yet been equipped to look at the prospect of allowing salmon and steelhead to return to the 300 miles of rivers upstream of the dams, Olson added.

Speaking Tuesday at a watershed conference at Oregon Institute of Technology, Olson said PacifiCorp mailed its application for a new license for the Klamath Hydroelectric Project this week to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which should receive it Wednesday.

That will start a yearlong review by FERC, and a 60-day public comment period on the application, Olson said. The previous 50-year license expires in a year.

Meanwhile, Indian tribes, sport and commercial fishing groups, environmentalists and the state of Oregon are pressing for FERC to take a close look at restoring salmon upstream of the dams for the first time since 1917. "We think it's an important goal," said Amy Stuart, hydropower program biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "There is literally 300 miles of historic habitat in the upper basin that is now unavailable. Part of it's in terrible shape. There are also a lot of restoration efforts beginning to be focused on basin."

PacifiCorp operates six hydroelectric facilities in connection with six dams spread along 45 miles of the Klamath River downstream from Klamath Falls and across the state border into California. Another small facility operates on Fall Creek, a tributary.

The power generated is relatively small, 151 megawatts of the 8,300 megawatts PacifiCorp generates for 1.5 million customers in Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, California, Utah and Idaho.

However, the dams figures prominently in operations because water stored in reservoirs there can be released to provide quick increases in power when demand peaks.

The Bush administration has focused on the Klamath Basin as a model for balancing the needs of fish against farms, an issue that came to the forefront in 2001 when irrigation was shut off to hundreds of farms to protect threatened coho salmon and endangered suckers.

Salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey have been unable to reach the upper 65 percent of the Klamath Basin since the first dam was built in 1917. Klamath Basin salmon, once the third most numerous population on the West Coast after salmon from the Columbia and Sacramento rivers, have been in decline ever since. The river's coho salmon are considered a threatened species by the federal government and the state of California.

The PacifiCorp application calls for decommissioning two small powerhouses on Link River Dam, located where the Klamath River flows out of Upper Klamath Lake in Klamath Falls. Link River Dam is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and is slated for a new fish ladder to help threatened suckers move in and out of the lake.

The J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2 and Irongate dams would continue generating electricity on the mainstem of the Klamath River. The Fall Creek powerhouse on a tributary would also continue operating.

Allen Foreman, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, said his people once harvested salmon from the Sprague River high in the upper basin, and would like to see the salmon return, both for tribal subsistence fisheries, and recreational and commercial fisheries that would benefit the whole region.

It will be up to NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency that oversees restoration of West Coast salmon runs, to decide whether restoring salmon passage would be required for PacifiCorp to get a new 50-year operating license.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[ 02-24-2004, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: BrianMaguire ]