Posted on 10/29/2007 8:33:08 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- California Energy Commission analysts urged Oregon, California and Washington to deny any requests from PacifiCorp to increase electricity rates to help pay for upgrading Klamath dams.
A Monday letter signed by California Energy Commission executive director B.B. Blevins asks the public utility commissions in each of the three states to authorize cost recovery only for decommissioning the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. Indian tribes, fishermen and conservation groups want the dams removed to open up spawning habitat for struggling salmon runs.
"The Energy Commission has a responsibility not only to provide reliable energy supplies, but to provide for the environment," said Chris Tooker, an energy policy analyst for the California Energy Commission. "It takes that balancing mandate seriously. The whole reason we are involved in the Klamath issue is to help educate the participants."
PacifiCorp is seeking a new license to operate the J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams on the Klamath for the next 30 to 50 years. Though the dams only produce enough power for 70,000 households, PacifiCorp says it's power that does not emit greenhouse gases.
The utility has said it would be willing to spend $300 million on fish ladders and other improvements to meet a federal mandate to provide salmon a way to reach hundreds of miles of spawning habitat blocked for the past century. It has also said it would be willing to remove the dams if their ratepayers don't have to pay for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Neither the ranchers nor the farmers who rely on Klamath Falls water is mentioned in this article.
Tear them down. California doesn’t need electricity.
Chris Tooker, zoology major, and one of Gray-out Davis’ flunkies.
Its all a plan, create artificialy shortages, raising kw/h pricing, and raising taxes based on the pricing.
It is like the baseline pricing....how to pass an illegal rate increase without anyone noticing.
Klamath ping.
THE STAND AT KLAMATH FALLS
How rural western farmers stood up to entrneched environmentalists and agencies of the Federal government and prevailed
So their solution to rolling blackouts and high electricity prices is more of the same obstructionism toward the industry. That makes a hell of a lot of sense. If these greenies want to go live in the sticks like Ted Kazinsky, who the hell is stopping them? Don’t drag us along on the ride to hell.
Explosives engineers will blow up portions of 50-year-old levees above Upper Klamath Lake on Tuesday, hammering a swift river into a slow marshland for the benefit of a fish whose survival in part once halted irrigation to downstream farms.
The federally protected sucker depends on such wetlands, and the action represents a replumbing of a key section of the embattled federal water project in the agriculture-intense Klamath Basin.
“It’s a large, complicated project with extremely high expectations,” said Curt Mullis, field supervisor with the Klamath Falls office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We’re hopeful and optimistic.”
The levees were built in the 1950s to convert rich bottomland soils into farmland and to channel the Williamson River directly into the Upper Klamath Lake. For half a century, farmers grew crops such as wheat, barley and alfalfa on great swaths of the drained land.
The levees’ destruction will come after 12 years of negotiations between interests that often have been at odds, including The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Klamath Tribes and the electric utility PacifiCorp, which operates dams on the Klamath River.
http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/119362651630280.xml&coll=7
A snapshot into the future of wind power.
We ain’t going to get to use it.
B.S. Zoology, '77
And people wonder why its cheaper to get grain from China
THAT is THE issue.
Envirofascist sleight of hand.
“Tear them down. California doesn’t need electricity.”
Kill the salmon!
No, Mr. Tooker, it's your job to make sure Californians have sufficient supply of electricity for their needs. It's the job of the California Fish and Wildlife Department to deal with issues related to environmental effects on wildlife. Just because you're a frustrated zoology major doesn't give you the right to abuse your authority!
Exactly right!
...and they only power 77,000 homes with those dams, nothing much to worry about losing.
Sorry but the dam removal plan sounds idiotic to me.
These are the same assbites that will cheer every time alternative energy sources power one extra home, but they’ll gladly sign onto this plan.
These folks should be on medication for skitzophrenia.
Thanks for the ping.
This case should prove instructive.
Agreed. Electricity is overrated.
You are the one whom holds the key. Screw it all. Blow it up tomorrow. I say do it and wake up this country. Sheesh!
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