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....and environmental leaders from northwest California went to Omaha to ask Buffett to tear down......buffett gives Billions to the Gates foundation.....

NEVADA CITY, California, November 19, 2008 (ENS) - Four dams on the Klamath River that have blocked salmon runs upstream to their spawning areas may be removed in the year 2020 under an historic agreement among federal, state and corporate parties. Dam removal will re-open over 300 miles of habitat for the Klamath's salmon and steelhead populations and eliminate water quality problems such as toxic algae blooms caused by the reservoirs. The federal government, the state of California, the state of Oregon and the PacifiCorp electric utility Thursday announced an Agreement in Principle to remove the four dams as part...

The agreement announced Tuesday on the future of the Klamath River offers reason for cautious hope that the troubled waterway can recover from years of human intervention and abuse while meeting the conflicting needs of fish and farms. The agreement � forged by the farmers, fishermen, American Indians, government agencies and conservation groups whose views on the Klamath’s future long have clashed � achieves the seemingly impossible: a broadly supported plan to allocate the free-flowing waters of the river without dams. Therein lies the hope. And therein lies the caution. That these longtime adversaries, who for years battled over a...

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,...

WASHINGTON - The Interior Department's inspector general didn't find political interference by Vice President Dick Cheney on a key environmental policy in part because investigators weren't looking for it, an Interior official said Tuesday. A 2004 report by the inspector general found no basis for a claim by then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that White House political advisers interfered in developing water policy in the Klamath River Basin in California and Oregon. But investigators did not ask about Cheney — and no Interior employee volunteered information about him, said Mary Kendall, deputy Interior inspector general. A former high-ranking Interior official,...

WASHINGTON - The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings into Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago. [clip]... Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California asked for the hearing in a letter to Rahall after the Washington Post reported on details of Cheney's intervention.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A Pacific Northwest utility must build new fish ladders and take other steps to help salmon swim freely past four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River if it wants to renew its license to produce electricity, federal fisheries agencies said Tuesday. The cost of the ladders, turbine screens and fish bypasses was estimated at nearly $300 million. The high cost could boost pressure on the utility, PacifiCorp, to remove the dams altogether — something environmentalists have been pushing for. Removing the dams would open access to 350 miles of salmon spawning habitat that have been blocked...

Setting the stage for a knockdown fight over the fate of four towering Klamath River dams accused of hammering salmon stocks and the West Coast fishing industry, a new government study released Friday has found that decommissioning the dams could cost $100 million less than operating them for another generation. The economic analysis, ordered by the California Energy Commission in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Interior, should provide ammunition for Indian tribes, environmentalists and commercial fishermen eager to see the hydropower dams demolished to reopen more than 300 miles of river that have been blocked to migrating salmon...

California Governor Schwarzenegger and Oregon Governor Kulongoski today directed their respective state agencies to organize a Klamath Summit to be held before the year ends. The governors have joined forces and are holding the summit to resolve a multitude of complex issues related to the health of the river that impact salmon fishermen, tribes, hydroelectric power and a host of environmental and habitat concerns. “We have the problems of water quality, water supply, listed species, energy generation, and agricultural sustainability expressed in countless ways in the Klamath Basin,” Governor Kulongoski said. “We must forge a consensus on a sustainable approach...

While this new world of corporate governance/ lobbyists/ privatization of the commons etc; seems difficult to understand (disguised as it is with buzz words – and meaningless jibberish), it’s really not as complex as one might think. After you learn how to ignore the superficial banalities, and get to the meat (if there is any) of the message being given. Most times you’ll hear just fluff and nutter talk – sounds important but isn’t. While we naturally focus upon local issues and concerns such as community development, roads, tons of garbage, forest access, tourism, sportsmen’s rights, lack of snow, no...

PacifiCorp may agree to removing dams But such a step to help Klamath salmon runs wouldn't be taken if higher power rates resulted, the utility says The new president of PacifiCorp's power generating division says the utility could agree to remove five dams from the Klamath River to help restore salmon if customers don't have to pay more for electricity. "We have heard the tribes' concerns," PacifiCorp Energy President Bill Fehrman said in a statement posted Wednesday on the utility's Web site. "We are not opposed to dam removal or other settlement opportunities as long as our customers are not...

Federal regulators have voted to impose severe restrictions on salmon fishing off the coasts of Oregon and Northern California to protect dwindling populations in the Klamath River. The Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to close about 700 miles of coastline to commercial salmon fishing for most of June and July. Those are generally the most productive months of the season.

Tucked into the folds of the gigantic state infrastructure bond lawmakers were grappling with into the evening Monday is money aimed at buying and removing dams on the Klamath River. It is the first sign that money would be available from the state to grease the skids in negotiations between the dam owner and the fleet of sometimes conflicting parties that have a stake in using the river or restoring its debilitated fish runs. Tribes, environmental groups, fishermen, farmers and agencies have been meeting every two weeks to hash out a settlement that could involve decommissioning Pacificorp's dams and removing...

Court tosses Bush plan for Klamath water Water A federal judge says the irrigation plan for farmers doesn't help threatened fish Wednesday, October 19, 2005 MICHAEL MILSTEIN A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the Bush administration plan to deliver irrigation water to Klamath Basin farmers, saying it does not do enough for threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River. The ruling probably will mean more water must be shifted from farmers to fish in the basin's emotional tug of war over the precious resource. "This clearly could be a worse picture for us than what we had in...

A judge has ruled that coho salmon have been illegally listed as an endangered species, a victory that comes too late for the farmers of the Klamath River Basin and the families of four young firefighters. In the spring of 2001, the government ordered irrigation water cut off to 1,400 farms in southern Oregon and northern California to save suckerfish and salmon... [snip] Last week, federal judge Michael Hogan agreed with the Pacific Legal Foundation that the government violated the ESA when it failed to include hatchery fish in its assessment of the coho’s status. ...the Klamath community was practically...

Klamath River Salmon Protections Ruled Illegal: Federal Court Says Endangered Species Listing Of Klamath Coho Is Bogus Eugene,OR; January 13, 2005: Coho salmon in the Klamath River Basin region have been illegally listed under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species, a federal judge declared yesterday. Ruling from the bench, Judge Michael Hogan agreed with Pacific Legal Foundation that the federal government violated the ESA when it failed to consider hatchery fish in its assessment of coho in southern Oregon and northern California rivers. ESA protection of coho in the Klamath River was a significant factor in the government’s...

Suckers hang around restored wetland Monday, November 8, 2004 1:34 PM PST By DYLAN DARLING MODOC POINT - Tiny juvenile suckers foraged this summer in a shallow bog that once served as a cow pasture beside Upper Klamath Lake. The appearance of the endangered fish was particularly rewarding for the Nature Conservancy, which bought the land and breached a dike to let lake water flow in and out of the parcel to create sucker habitat. "It is showing us that if we open up areas, they will use them," said John Crandall, the Klamath Basin fisheries ecologist for the Nature...

Screens accomplish at least one big goalPublished November 7, 2004 The new $16 million fish screens at the headgates on the A Canal apparently have done a job. They had two jobs to do, actually, and while we don't know if they've done both of them, they've certainly done one. In building the fish screens, the federal government has eliminated a source of contention between irrigators on the Klamath Reclamation Project and the Klamath Tribes, to whom the suckers are an important part of their religion and culture, and, historically, as food. Two species of the sucker have come under...

Native Americans demonstrating in Edinburgh yesterday Fish rotting in the Klamath river. The tribesmen are calling for fish ladders or other measures to allow salmon to move upstream. Picture: David Moir NATIVE Americans embroiled in a dispute with the energy company ScottishPower have pledged to take their case to the governor of the State of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The tribesmen were in Edinburgh yesterday to demonstrate at ScottishPower’s annual meeting. They say dams owned by a subsidiary of the company have damaged their fishing grounds. They publicly challenged the chief executive of ScottishPower, Ian Russell, to make a personal...

Legislators seek changes to Endangered Species Act KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - A House subcommittee looking for ways to change the Endangered Species Act came to the Klamath Basin on Saturday, where irrigation water was cut off to 1,400 farms in 2001 to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish. "In 30 years, only seven species of 1,300 listed have been recovered, and those are mainly due to other conservation laws," said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. "At the same time, communities across the West are stopped cold in their tracks...