The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Klamath dam deal struck
John Driscoll/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 11/13/2008 01:27:02 AM PST


Click photo to enlarge«1»The federal government and Pacificorp have reached an agreement in principal on removing four dams on the Klamath River and have floated the deal to tribes, fishermen, farmers and conservation groups.
The White House is expected to release details of the plan today, but sources say the agreement includes beginning to tear down the dams by 2020, with Pacificorp putting tens of millions of dollars toward the effort.

Participants in the briefing were being tightlipped about the deal, which until today was confidential.

”It's going in the right direction,” said Steve Rothert -- with the group American Rivers -- about the agreement.

The dams have for decades blocked salmon from migrating into the upper reaches of the Klamath River, and salmon and other fisheries have suffered. The four dams that are the target of the proposal are Iron Gate, Copco I, Copco 2, and J.C. Boyle. The Pacificorp project in total produces up to 151 megawatts of power a year. It would be the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

In 2004, Pacificorp applied for a new license for the dams, triggering a massive review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC recommended keeping the dams in place, but federal fisheries agencies demanded that fish ladders be built to pass salmon upstream.

The California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of the Interior have estimated that removing the dams could be $32 to $286 million cheaper for Pacificorp



than leaving them in place but having to build fish ladders and make other required changes.
An earlier agreement among 26 agencies, tribes and other stakeholders addressed a host of other issues the basin has struggled with. It looked to improve conditions for salmon, improve the Klamath's notorious water quality and secure irrigation supplies for farms upstream. The agreement did not contain a dam-removal deal, however, and some groups criticized those who signed onto the arrangement without that provision.

Humboldt County Supervisor Jill Geist said she appreciated the hard work of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, the U.S. Interior Department and Pacificorp.

”I believe that the agreements in principle are largely consistent with the work of the Klamath settlement group to date,” Geist said, “and now we have a green light to finalize this agreement.”

Just saw this, too. Bjorn goes to work for Friends of the River, now this agreement. Coincidence? Oh, I think not.

Great news.

Sounds promising!

Kelly Catlett is our woman working this issue. It is a very good sign that Pacific Corps has seen the light that Dam Removal is in the future of the Klamath. More work is to be done to get this to a place where we would want to see it ideally at. Doubtful that this is the final chapter in the long saga of this process.

B-

If you'd like to know more about FOR's take on this, please contact me directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 408-802-6125. I can't really post freely on this subject due to some communications agreements we have signed that keep us in the negotiations.

B-

hate to poop on the parade but this may very well be a wolf in sheeps clothing. There are some pretty drastic things that need to happen for this NON-BINDING agreement to have any impact. Many of the terms of the agreement are downright unrealistic. Call me a cynic but does anyone else notice a problem when the outgoing administration strikes a deal with Pacificorp.....methinks pacificorp just bought themselves some time.

I think many FF are so excited about some dams being removed that they are all quick to jump on the bandwagon without reading the fine print. In this case, the fine print means the taxpayers (that's right you and me!) get stuck with all the dam removal bills (not PacifiCorp, who raked the profits in for 50 years before their FERC license expires)!!! Pretty good deal for PacifiCorp, but I'm not too sure about this being a good deal for me when I get stuck with footing the bill for PacifiCorp's problems. Especially when it does nothing to solve the root cause of the problem of returning water to the fishies since Klamath Basin water is over allocated. Sorry, but I've read the fine print and I ain't jumping on this bandwagon yet!

I'm cynical enough about these things to have some healthy skepticism. And yet...more progress is being made than ever before. And having refrained from making any political comments during the election, I'll do so here as well. Let's just say that Mother Nature probably heaved a sigh of relief at 8 p.m. PST on November 4.

Andrew Weiner wrote:
I'm Let's just say that Mother Nature probably heaved a sigh of relief at 8 p.m. PST on November 4.

that would be a huge understatement.

the more I hear about this deal the more I realize how many problems it has. spoke with a few people in the fishery business last couple days that call this nothing but a last gasp by the bush administration to get a sweetheart deal to pacificorp. like you said, when you read the fine print on this one it is bad. With Bush going away and Smith getting thrown out in Oregon (which is also a huge victory for mother nature) pacificorp wont have many friends in high places now.

There were a lot of sighs of reliefs.

I, however, have not read the small print, so excuse my ignorance.
Why 2020? That seems like a long time. I originally thought they might use this time to get the revenue from the dams, to put towards the deconstruction. But since we’re paying for it, (if it actually happens) then why not now, while it’s cheaper?

And secondly, if I remember correctly, there’s going to be some very bad water flowing out from the current reservoirs. Is there something that will be done about that, or will it just have to run its course? (algae, silt and such)

Pound

From what I've heard the runnoff issue is much, much less of a problem on the Klamath than on other systems. Not sure why that is or the exact numbers, but I can try and find out.

Second... 2020... good question... first they are going to spend 4 YEARS studying removal and then 8 years doing god knows what. One big issue is that the available pots of money are capped (as I understand it)... CA will only pay $250M and the good rate payers of Pacific Corps will only pay $200M. The estimate is $450M for removal, but those numbers depend on who does it, how well they stick to budget and they are today's dollars, not 2020 dollars, or 2025 dollars when the last dam is slated for the hammer. Oh, and by the way, that money CA will be looking for would probably come from THE WATER BOND... which would suck more water from the Lower Sac a la Sites Reservoir and build another multi billion dollar dam at Temperance Flat on the SJ that we estimate would never fill and would have some water in it only 1-4 years.

There is a lot of work to be done on this deal to make it... well... anything beyond a piece of paper that one might bring back and wave to supporters if you are really channeling Neville Chamberlain.

So... on with the good fight.

B-

The "real" reason for the delay, is so PacifiCorp can delay the inevitable for as long as possible (and make as much money as possible before they actually have to cease operations when their FERC license expires). This is nothing more than a stall tactic by PacifiCorp to operate the dam "normally" for as long as possible, while trying to look like a "green" utility that supports the environment (while getting the taxpayers to pay to fix the problems they have caused), and milk this for every single nickel for as long as they can!
To answer your other question, the problem isn't runoff per se, but the water picking up biotoxins from the algae growth in the reservoirs, which then gets dumped into the river. Turns out these biotoxins exceed Fed drinking standards by 1,000 to 1,000,000 times (depending on which sample you want to look at!). But once the reservoirs are gone, the biotoxins will not be a problem since the algae will not have a fantastic place to grow like they do now! A huge water quality issue currently affecting the Klamath that disappears once the dams are gone.