Deal to raze 4 Klamath dams

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/30/9 | Peter Fimrite

[SmithL]

In what is being touted as the world's biggest dam-removal project, an agreement was reached Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California's beleaguered salmon.

The tentative agreement was reached after a decade of negotiations among 28 parties, including American Indian tribes, farmers, fishermen and the hydroelectric company that operates the dams and distributes the water. The plan would set in motion one of the most ambitious efforts in U.S. history to restore the habitat of a federally protected species if it receives final approval by the parties in December, as expected.

The dams - Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle - have blocked salmon migration for a century along the California-Oregon border and have been blamed for much of the historic decline of chinook and coho salmon and steelhead trout in the Klamath. Under the plan, the dams operated by the utility, PacificCorp, would be dismantled beginning in 2020.

The ultimate goal of the so-called Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement is to restore what has historically been the third-largest source of salmon in the lower 48 states, behind the Columbia and Sacramento rivers. Chinook once swam all the way up to Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, providing crucial sustenance to American Indians, including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath and Hoopa Valley tribes.

"This is the deal that we have all been working on for 10 years," said Steve Rothert, the California director of American Rivers, a national nonprofit river conservation group. "There were a lot of people who didn't think we could do this, and some groups that worked actively to prevent it. It's fantastic that we've reached this spot."

[Clinging Bitterly]

One thing - I mis-stated the affiliation of PacifiCorp. It is or was a part of Scottish Power. But the conversion of it's assets into PUDs is ongoing.

It is PGE (Portland General Electric) that was a part of Enron. Oregon's former Governor Neil Goldschmidt (as part of a holding group with control of the utility) was in the midst of orchestrating a plan to convert that utility to government ownership when a sex scandal involving him and an under age girl forced his disappearance from the public scene. The plan to do that still exists but with the original driving force out of the picture it is moving slower.

I live in Eugene and we've had a government owned electric/water utility forever. In theory it's not a bad way to go and 20 years ago we had almost the best electric & water rates in the country. Now, with the influx of social progressives on the board we see much squandered on feelgood environMental crap and some of the first of many to come windmill farm boondoggles, plus all the usual self sabotage of it's own hydro power licensing efforts, union perks, a beautiful palace on prime city riverfront property, and so on ad infinitum. Rates across the board have quadrupled and I think now most of the state's other electric utility rates are cheaper. But the Eugene utility is oh so green and fully devoted to social justice, you can just feel the love.

Oh they had their nuclear boondoggle too. They originally partnered with PGE in planning and building the old Trojan plant, then turned anti-nuclear and never drew a watt-hour of it's juice in the plant's 20 some year run.

[marsh2]

PacifiCorp is Warren Buffet’s (and stockholder’s) company now.

[Amerigomag]

Not a case of the last word but fact:

1) None, repeat none, disagreed with 100 year flood control.
2) 100 year flood control would be authorized today because the expensive work is complete.
3) The high dam was the center of the dispute.
4) Not a single municipality, not a single county nor the State of California would agree to pay a fair share for the substantial, additional cost of the high dam.
5) Today, federal taxpayers outside of California continue unwilling to subsidize a handful of counties in California.
6) The high dam could still be built today if, in spite of environmental opposition, the local beneficiaries would foot the bill through local property assessments and rate subsidies.

A great irony in this epic battle between local and federal interest is that environmental considerations may ultimately force construction of the high dam as population pressure reduces the absorptive capacity of the delta and additional storage in the watershed is need to maintain SF Bay during low water flow periods.