The full cost of dam removal must include mitigation for lost tax revenue to the County for (1) the value of the dams, (2) the value of lake front private property for more than 1000 landowners; just compensation to those property owners for the loss of value in their property from having the lake drained and bass fishery destroyed; restoration of raw lake bottom to something aesthetically pleasing for the landowners who see it; arrangement for continued access for landowners to the river for recreation; mitigation for properties destroyed or impaired downriver of Iron Gate for raising river levels during certain tiles of the year by more than 4 feet - including several resorts; some sort of flood control mitigation and some sort of regulation of flows to protect recreational boaters, fishermen and miners from dangerous erratic flows; mitigation for the loss of premier white water rafting opportunities in the upper part above Copco; mitigation for any damage to fisheries from release of sediment onto spawning areas and lack of flow control. The estimates for full mitigation amount to well over a billion dollars.
The Klamath River tribes like to say it is only the cost of fish passage vs. actual removal of the dams. Nooooo, there is much more unless all the other parties are to get the shaft.
The question also remains where the stock to reseed the spring chinook and alleged upper Klamath salmon will come from. There were only 50 spring chinook that returned last year to the Salmon River. This is really not enough to reseed an entire system. It is also doubtfull that a race of chinook "still" exists in the system that could make it all the way from the ocean, through the Klamath lakes and into the Sprague and Williamson.
Is it all just a pipe dream - can we go back to the days of yore? Should we try smaller steps like fish passge first instead of ripping out all the plumbing?
Thanks for the reality check! I'm for keeping the plumbing. :-)