Posted on 01/30/2007 8:49:35 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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 for nearly a century.
The fish ladders and other modifications were ordered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. Under law, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that actually awards plant licenses, must incorporate those requirements in any licensing decision.
The Klamath dams are at the end of their 50-year license, and a renewal is expected to last up to 50 years.
Steve Thompson, California-Nevada operations manager for Fish and Wildlife, said the dam modifications are necessary to "provide important new conservation benefits for people and for the fish of the Klamath River."
PacifiCorp spokesman Dave Kvamme said the utility is a long way from making a decision on whether to remove the dams, and hopes a settlement can be reached with the various agencies and other parties.
Steve Rothert of the environmental group American Rivers said removing the four dams would be the biggest single river restoration project in the nation to date, and perhaps the most effective.
Indian tribes, commercial fishermen and conservation groups have pressed for the removal of dams on the Klamath. PacifiCorp has said it would be willing to do so if its customers did not have to pay more for electricity.
Seven other hydroelectric dams in Oregon and Washington — two owned by PacifiCorp — are to be removed in the next few years.
Salmon have been struggling in the Klamath for decades from the effects of the dams, gold mining, logging, grazing, water withdrawals for irrigation and pollution from agricultural runoff. Federal regulators have practically shut down commercial salmon fishing on the West Coast.
The utility serves 1.6 million customers in six Western states. The four dams at issue straddle the Oregon-California line and produce enough power to serve 70,000 customers. The power represents 1.7 percent of PacifiCorp's total output.
But mainly for the fish...
Global-warming-is-not-a-crisis-but-government-stupidity-is-a-big-one bump
ping
Next year they'll be demanding "fish walkers" along the shore for the older salmon that can't climb the ladder.
Fish climb ladders huh ?
I always wondered how that bass got on the top of my extension ladder.
Not considered were over-harvest, predation, water temperature, loss of habitat for spawning & juvenile fish, de-watering streams for irrigation, among others.
That doesn't really sound like that many people, and I can't imagine it would be worth the company $300 million to keep them. I suppose there's always the option of more coal-fired or--even more sure to thrill the environmentalists--nuclear plants.
300 million seems like a lot, it would have to return what, a billion maybe over the 50 years. 70,000 customers would be paying that. It might pencil out I dunno.
But it's crazy. K river has been blocked for a century and suddenly that one system is the cause of the decline in salmon, I think not. As for the tribes, it was within my lifetime that they were paid off by the taxpayers for the native rights that they sold under treaty.
I swear we're fast becoming a nation being taken over by complete IDIOTS!!! (I won't even go near that Auburn Dam thread!)
This is a no shi#!er. In Nevada when the fish ladder didn't work at Pyramid Lake they installed a fish elevator. The current contraption is called a fish lock, but basically it is an elevator.
Salmon 4-6 year breeding cyle; death after breeding.
25 generations for the "effect" of the dams to show up?!?
Oh, wait; HATCHERY fish are not counted, even though the hatchery got its breeding stock from the fish originally unable to pass the dams when they were built. Now those generations of fish return to the hatchery, but aren't really "Klamath River" salmon.
If, as they claim, the salmon return to the very gravel bar where they hatched and lived before going to the ocean: how does "opening 350 miles of stream habitat" have salmon return to it, when NO salmon has used it for 100 years?
Or, do they plan to PLANT that habitat with HATCHERY roe or smolts?
Insanity. The dam's been there 50 years, isn't there a grandfather clause or something? There must be some sort of appeal process for this idiocy.
This is an issue I'm torn over. I'm not willing to give up electric power, but I like the idea of keeping the salmon populations strong. That's not just because I like eating salmon, but because the salmon help prop up the food web in the northwest. I like camping out here. It'd be sad to see a bunch of other animal species die out because the salmon died out.
Good! Remove the dams and let all the Enviro-whackos watch the swimming salmon by candle light during regular evening brown-outs.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Klamath Ping.
mainly helps the Indians....who despite their billions in casino revenue like to think of themselves as nature lovers.....I don't know what they do on the Kalamath, but they gill net fish on the Columbia...no matter what fish....native or introduced.....its all theirs
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