Posted: Friday, February 12, 2010 12:00 AM
Associated Press file photo
The J.C. Boyle dam near Klamath Falls, Ore. is a piece of PacifiCorp's hydroelectric project on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
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Dam decision gets fast track
Team of 45 experts to prepare reports for feds, California
By TAM MOORE
For the Capital Press
MEDFORD, Ore. -- The federal government is on a fast track to decide if removing four Klamath River hydroelectric dams is the right idea.
A study team drawn from three federal departments is under orders to produce a recommendation in less than two years.
"It's a very large environmental question that's being asked," said Dennis Lynch, the project manager. Speaking here at a week-long Klamath Basin science conference, Lynch introduced senior members of the team and gave an overview of the complexity of the effort. They represent the Interior, Commerce and Agriculture departments.
He said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who will ultimately decide the fate of the dams, has asked for a finished report by November 2011. That's well ahead of the spring 2012 deadline for the secretary's determination of whether removal of PacifiCorp hydroelectric dams is in the public interest. A "yes" by Interior, and actions by Congress, would launch the dam removal in 2020.
Stakeholders, which range from irrigators to Native American tribes with treaty rights to groups seeking to protect dwindling salmon runs, crafted two agreements that came out in final form in January after three years of negotiations. Governments and other stakeholders this month are considering signing on to the controversial deal.
The environmental, economic and cultural study envisioned by Lynch and his team of 45 federal experts will attempt to look at the impacts of dam removal from 2020 through 2070.
"A 50-year period is good when you are looking at changes in an ecosystem (that have occurred) and (are trying) to change it back," Lynch said.
Over 300 people participated in the science conference coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey. Lynch is a USGS manager stationed in Portland but is detailed to work full-time on the study.
There was a word of caution Feb. 5 as the conference wound down. It came from Ron Neilson, a research ecologist and climatologist whose ideas led to a popular computer model of interactions between climate and soil. Neilson is part of the U.S. Forest Service research laboratory in Corvallis, Ore.
The Klamath Basin, shared by Oregon and California, is between two large climate regimes dictated by happenings in the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere above it. That leads to variability in the basin's climate, Neilson said.
"That's going to drive the boat," even as projected increases in global temperatures alter rainfall, duration of snow cover and length of summer dry periods. He suggested that experts look for the biological function, such as desired plant growth or fish survival, and figure out how it might be aided or put under stress by human management actions.
In addition to producing what will amount to a book-length summary of findings with reference material, the Lynch team is charged with doing an environmental impact report under federal standards and a separate report meeting the California Environmental Quality Act. Both call for extensive public participation before a final decision is made. Endangered Species Act protection for some Klamath fish, and a separate 1976 law regulating off-shore commercial salmon populations are both part of the consideration.
Nearly 1,200 farmers within the Klamath Project were refused water in a 2001 U.S. Bureau of Reclamation decision. Reclamation said a drought-limited water supply would be allocated to protect ESA-listed fish in Upper Klamath Lake and coho salmon in the Klamath River.
The project straddling the California-Oregon border has delivered irrigation water each spring since 1907.
Comments made about this article
Posted By: Danny Hull On: 2/15/2010
Title:
Pacific Power—per PacifiCorp and before--has been negligent about upgrading its hydropower facilities for riverway multiple use. Together the Klamath River hydroelectric dams have amply paid for each other, however upgrading of three of the dams for fish passage is long overdue. That upgrading may include new, modernly efficient turbines, and slightly reduced turbine water flow, to accommodate adequate constant fishway river flow. PacifiCorp has had three different owners in the past ten years, and is managed excessively for profit harvesting, without accomplishing sufficient financial investment in both initiating and upgrading clean renewable energy-powered electricity production, and in abandoning fossil fuel combustion-powered electricity production. Recently the U.S.A. Federal Government initiated a “fast track” study of the Klamath River hydroelectric dams, that will be due 11/2011, and that in my opinion should be for the purpose of determining, and reporting, the adequacy of the Klamath River hydroelectric dams for 50 years of recertification per the U.S.A. Federal Court fishway mandate for those dams; however Capital Press reports that “The federal government is on a fast track to decide if removing four Klamath River hydroelectric dams is the right idea.” The U.S.A. Secretary of the Interior has until spring 2012 for determining ". . . whether removal of PacifiCorp hydroelectric dams is in the public interest. A "yes" by Interior, and actions by Congress, would launch the dam removal in 2020. ”(Capital Press, February 14, 2010) Thus more taxpayer study expense in consequence of PacifiCorp negligence. Perhaps U.S.A. Federal Government ownership of the Klamath River dams, would provide better multiple river-use management of the dams, for the public welfare. May Pacific Power ratepayers afford a long term small rate increase to upgrade PacifiCorp hydroelectric dams? Pacific Power ratepayers are declared to on the average usually pay some of the lowest monthly electricity use rates of all U.S.A. electricity grid electricity users (e.g.: My Klamath Falls 01/2010 Pacific Power rate was 8.9¢/KWh, compared to California's 10/2009 average electricity use rate of 14.08¢/KWh), so I estimate that they certainly may. Klamath Lake has excellent irrigation water, because Klamath Lake water is naturally high in phosphorous. I estimate that without the Klamath River hydroelectric dams, very, very likely the Klamath River will often rapidly run too dry to accommodate maximum annual “A” Canal irrigation flow. (Link River blew dry on July 18, 1918, while “A” Canal was operational and three of the Klamath River hydroelectric dams didn't exist.) After only a few years of reduced or no “A” Canal irrigation flow, much Klamath Basin farmland, will as farmland, probably only be commercially viable for dry land agriculture at most, due to deficient harvests financial loss. Klamath Basin farmers shouldn't trust on Government subsidies being necessarily forthcoming adequate compensation, for any Klamath River low water-caused irrigation reduction years. Klamath River should be managed as a multiple-use river, and PacifiCorp is substantially failing to accomplish its responsibility in that way.