Posted: Thursday, September 29, 2011 11:00 AM
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Sides clash over Klamath studies
Environmental reports reignite debate over dams
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
REDDING, Calif. -- The two sides in the debate over whether to remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River offered opposing reviews of key documents released this month by the federal government.
Proponents say that technical reviews and environmental reports unveiled Sept. 21 by the U.S. Department of the Interior show the dam removals and related restoration efforts would provide significant economic and other benefits to Northern California and Southern Oregon.
Groups including the Klamath Tribes, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and irrigators' organizations applauded Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's statement that the dam removals would cost $290 million and not $450 million as initially estimated.
"For one thing, they're thorough, they're very thorough," PCFFA Northwest regional director Glen Spain said of the scientific studies. "They spent a lot of time, effort and money keeping their commitment to do as thorough and as unbiased an analysis as possible.
"There are pluses and minuses just like with any project of this sort," he said. "The good news is the pluses are very large ... and the minuses are all controllable."
But Tom Mallams, a Beatty, Ore., hay farmer who has led local opposition to the project, questioned the science behind the studies. He said they "are totally ignoring" problems that would be caused by releasing sediment from behind the dams into the river.
"The state does not allow me to put four or five yards of material in the river without permits," Mallams said. "They're talking 22 million cubic yards of sediment and they know there's lots of nasty stuff in there. That is absolute, pure insanity."
Mallams and others have been busily poring over the long-awaited studies required as part of the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, which was formed by more than 30 governmental and tribal entities and announced in February 2010.
Among the findings by the Department of the Interior's researchers was that the dam removals and restoration efforts could increase salmon harvests, eliminate toxic algae blooms from reservoirs and restore more normal water temperatures in the river.
The project would create as many as 1,400 jobs in the short term and wouldn't directly affect water supplies in the Klamath Basin because the dams being eliminated don't provide storage for irrigation, the government asserted.
The studies were released along with state and federal environmental documents, the public comment period for which began Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 21. A series of public hearings will include one at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Klamath County Fairgrounds in Klamath Falls, Ore.
Proponents hope the environmental reports will provide them with the political momentum necessary to push the project through Congress. They tout the purported cost savings, arguing they would even accept a partial removal of the dams at an estimated cost of $247 million.
"With some old power houses and abutments left behind, it still creates a free flowing river," said Craig Tucker, the Karuk Tribe's Klamath coordinator. "If they can save $50 million and do it that way, we would be willing to go along with a partial removal scenario."
Backers of the dam removals say the studies show the project would lead to more commercial fishing jobs while providing tribes with an increased abundance of salmon and improved water quality.
They note findings that the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges would receive additional water, which could improve hunting and wildlife viewing, attracting more visitors. There would be an estimated additional 193,830 fall waterfowl and 3,634 hunting trips over the 50-year period of analysis, they assert.
"We hope it'll motivate Congress to take action," Tucker said. "This is an effort that does a lot more than restore salmon. It puts the Klamath Basin on the path to economic sustainability."
However, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., who earlier this year authored amendments to strip $1.9 million for Klamath River dam removal studies from a stopgap spending measure, blasted the scientific findings in a speech last week on the floor of the House of Representatives.
He argued that statistics showing a declining salmon population don't take into account the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery, which produces 5 million salmon smolts each year -- 17,000 of which return annually as fully grown adults to spawn. The hatchery would close if the Iron Gate Dam is removed, he said.
Declining salmon runs have occurred throughout the West as a result of naturally occurring cold-water currents in the ocean which have shifted north over the last 10 years, causing salmon numbers to explode in Alaska, McClintock said.
"The cost of this madness is currently pegged at a staggering $290 million -- all at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers," he said. "But that's just the cost of removing the dams. Consumers will face permanently higher prices for replacement power, which we're told will be wind and solar.
"We're told that yes, this is expensive, but it will cost less than retrofitting the dams to meet cost-prohibitive environmental requirements," he said. "If that's the case, then maybe we should re-think those requirements, not squander more than a quarter billion dollars to destroy existing hydroelectric dams."
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., countered that the reports "demonstrate the benefits of the (Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement) and the hard work that has gone on in the basin among farmers, tribes and the fishing and conservation communities ... to create stability and end years of battling over water."
Online
Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement studies and EIS/EIR: http://klamathrestoration.gov
Comments made about this article
Posted By: Glen Spain - Pacific Coast Fed. of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) On: 9/28/2011
Title: Rep. McClintock's Many Mistaken Facts on the Klamath Settlement
All....
Just for the record, and with all due respect to Rep. McClintock, he is DEAD WRONG about the Klamath Settlement Agreement, and in particular Klamath Hydropower Project dam removal as proposed in the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KHSA), in several respects. Here are some major errors he has made in recent speeches, some picked up for this article:
(1) He says that Iron Gate Hatchery will be removed. Not True! The KHSA Plan will keep the hatchery intact, just changing the plumbing a bit, and PacifiCorp (which now owns it) will pay for its operational costs, as it now does, for an additional EIGHT YEARS after removal of Iron Gate Dam (see KHSA, Appendix D, Interim Measures 18-20). Iron Gate Hatchery will be transferred to the State of California -- its already part of the State Hatchery Program.
(2) The issue of "counting hatchery fish with wild" is irrelevant.... this is an issue with some ESA-listed fish, but the main workhorse salmon species of the Klamath River that has been is such decline in recent years (fall run chinook) is NOT ESA LISTED. And hatchery-produced fall run chinook from Iron Gate Hatchery are already counted anyway by fisheries managers as part of all harvests. It is pure economics that is driving PacifiCorp's decision to decommission and remove the four obsolete Klamath Dams -- NOT the Endangered Species Act.
(3) No federal money will be used for dam removal or mitigations for dam removal. So where is his beef? Dam removal will affect the federal budget not one bit.
(4) These dams are PRIVATE PROPERTY. The federal government, under the US Constitution, has no business telling PacifiCorp, a privately owned corporation, what to do with its own property! There is also no Constitutional duty for the company to keep following a failing business plan, whether Rep. McClintock likes it or not. Having Congress telling a private landowner what it can -- and can't -- do with its OWN PROPERTY is not a precendent any good Republican conservative Congressman should be setting!
(5) He also greatly overestimates the total power output of the dams. As explained in my prior posting, it not that much as these things go -- only 82 MW. This is less than 2% of PacifiCorp's total power output and easily -- and more cheaply -- replaced elsewhere in PacifiCorp's six-state grid than paying the VERY high costs of retrofitting what are now functionally obsolete dams, some nearly a century out of date.
Removing the dams will cost an estimated $290 million (2020 dollars), of which PacifiCorp ratepayers are on the hook for ONLY the first $200 million. Keeping the dams, however, will cost ratepayers AT LEAST $460 million, and likely well over $500 million -- with no upper cap in sight. Look it up -- these numbers are in PacifiCorp's Testimony in the Cal. PUC Docket No. A10-03-015, the PUC case in which the PUC determined that dam removal per the KHSA is FAR CHEAPER for PacifiCorp's ratepayers than FERC relicensing.
If I were offered a brocken down old 1930's "tin lizzie" and told I would have to pay roughly 2.5 times the cost of a new Ford Truck to fix it up, part by part, to make it LOOK like a new truck -- I would trun it down and just buy the Ford Truck up front.... It would be a LOT cheaper and I know it would work right. Its just the same with nearly century old dams.
Posted By: Glen Spain -- Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) On: 9/28/2011
Title: Klamath Dam Removal Saves Ratepayers Money, Makes Economic Sense
Whatever choice PacifiCorp (also called “Pacific Power” in California) makes, the company’s costs of that decision will ultimately be charged to its customer/ratepayers. THIS IS HOW ELECTRICAL UTILITIES WORK. Their ONLY source of revenues is generally the creation of electrical power they then sell to their customers, collecting enough revenues from their customers to fund their operations. This is all regulated by state Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs) in each state where they operate, as the watchdog agencies that assures that their state’s customers get charged fair, reasonable – and generally the lowest-cost – power rates for the services they receive.
What a lot of dam removal oppoents do not understand is that there are ONLY TWO legal options for these Klamath Hydropower Project dams, EITHER of which will cost PacifiCorp ratepayers money: (1) fix them up and relicense them to modern standards, which turns out will cost at least $460 million, and quite likely more than $500 million once all (currently unknown) water quality mitigation costs are added in, according to PacifiCorp testimony to the PUCs, or; (2) decommission and remove these aging dams entirely – which it can now do under the Klamath Hydropower Settlement Agreement (KHSA) for a “capped” cost to its customers of only $200 million, with the rest paid by the State of California.
The best current estimate for the total costs of decommissioning and full removal of the four dams, from the recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), so that the Klamath River and its salmon can once move run freely through them, is about $290 million, including various environmental mitigation measures. By implementing dam removal through the KHSA PacifiCorp thus saves its customers at least another $90 million as well as reduces its own company and ratepayer risk and uncertainty. This is another reason the KHSA is a good deal for PacifiCorp customers.
On May 5th, 2011, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) formally confirmed that the KHSA is indeed the most cost effective, least risk and therefore best alternative for PacifiCorp’s customers as compared to relicensing CPUC Docket No. A10-03-015). A prior September 16, 2010, ruling by the Oregon PUC came to the same conclusion (OPUC Docket No. UE-219). Look it up!
The reality is that all four dams combined do not generate all that much power. Although the whole Klamath Hydroelectric Project is technically rated for maximum power generation of about 169 megawatts (MW), these dams cannot run at maximum capacity 24/7, especially during summers when turbine flows are lowest. The entire Project combined actually generated only about 82 MW of power on average over the past 50 years, according to FERC records. Bt comparison, a SINGLE modern electrical power plant can continuously generate 1,000 MW or more.
And according to estimates by FERC, even after all the expensive retrofitting to meet modern standards for relicensing, these dams would then only generate about 61 MW of power on average -- about 26% less than they do today. Relicensing thus means spending a great deal of money for what is actually very little power. In fact, FERC estimated in its 2007 Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIS) on relicensing that even if fully relicensed, the required retrofitting would be so expensive that these dams would then operate at more than a $20 million/year NET LOSS. (See FERC Final EIS (Nov., 2007) at www.ferc.gov -- Docket No. P-2082-027, filed 11/16/07 -- Table 4-3, pg. 4-2). Again, look it up!
In short, keeping the Klamath dams means extremely expensive fixes for a lot less power, and a Project that would likely lose money for the rest of any new license – losses that customers would ultimately also have to make up for in even higher power rates. A lot of our members are also PacifiCorp ("Pacific Power" in California) ratepayers also. They don't want to be gouged for higher rates to pay for less power either! Why should they be forced to pay higher rates for power PacifiCorp can get cheaper elsewhere?
The economic “bottom line” is that it’s just a LOTcheaper for customers for PacifiCorp to remove the dams than to keep them. And this is completely ignoring likely and projected economic and jobs benefits of a restored world-class salmon run, a more stable irrigation system and the many other benefits also highlighted in the DEIS. Just as a business proposition, alone, keeping these particular dams makes no economic sense!
As to replacement power, Pacific Power is already legally committed to bringing more than 1,400 MW of brand new, cost-effective renewable power online by 2015. This is 17 TIMES more power than the four Klamath dams generate all together! Adding an additional 82 MW of cost-effective and clean replacement power to its grid after 2020, as it intends to do under the KHSA, would be an almost trivial task by comparison. There are many options for the replacement of this power from comparable carbon-free or renewable sources by 2020. ALL of them will be cheaper to ratepayers -- which includes most of Klamath County, Oregon and Siskiyou County, California -- than trying to patch up these economically obselete and aging dams.
Opponents of dam removal are simply wrong on the numbers. Why would anyone want to pay up to 2.5 times more money, all to keep dams that would operate at a perpetual LOSS, thus costing ratepayers even more? What is the point?
PacifiCorp is no whacko greenie group.... they are hard core business people looking at how best to protect their customers -- including many of your readers. And these dams are also PRIVATE PROPERTY. Those property rights, just like yours, are protected by the US Constitution. Why should any member of the public have ANY say over what they do with their own property, especially trying to force them to keep failing assets that will cost more than they are worth to keep?
Posted By: Felice Pace On: 9/28/2011
Title: Your missing key issues
Whether it is the Klamath River or the Sacramento Delta the CapitalPress is missing the significance of what the federal agencies and their allies are trying to accomplish: they are working to put federal water managers back in control of California's water.
Through many years of painstaking work, environmental, fishing and tribal interests challenged and to some extent wrested control of California water management from federal and state bureaucrats who for far too long had sacrificed public trust resources and senior water rights in order to provide taxpayer subsidized water to big agribusiness corporations and water brokers. The Klamath deals turn back the clock. If they are endorsed by Congress, they will put the Bureau of Reclamation and the Irrigation Elite it serves back in the water management drivers seat. And that in turn would preclude restoration of the River and recovery of Klamath salmon. That's why many Klamath residents and interests which favor dam removal will not endorse the Klamath dam and water deals.
The Klamath deals require federal legislation and funding in order to proceed. Those who favor the health of the river over subsidies and sweetheart deals will work with members of Congress to fix key flaws during the legislative process.