Oregon Ping
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Posted on 10/12/2006 9:18:57 PM PDT by calcowgirl
California Governor Schwarzenegger and Oregon Governor Kulongoski today directed their respective state agencies to organize a Klamath Summit to be held before the year ends. The governors have joined forces and are holding the summit to resolve a multitude of complex issues related to the health of the river that impact salmon fishermen, tribes, hydroelectric power and a host of environmental and habitat concerns.
“We have the problems of water quality, water supply, listed species, energy generation, and agricultural sustainability expressed in countless ways in the Klamath Basin,” Governor Kulongoski said. “We must forge a consensus on a sustainable approach to the Klamath.”
“Both our states are recognized leaders in protecting our environment,” added Schwarzenegger. “I look forward to working with Governor Kulongoski and his team to develop a plan that will protect these valuable natural resources while balancing our needs as responsible stewards of the environment.”
The summit follows a partnership between Washington, Oregon and California that was announced on Sept. 18 during California and the World Ocean ’06 in Long Beach, Calif. the three governors signed an agreement to create a partnership that would work to protect the entire Pacific coast. Organizing and holding the summit fulfills a part of that agreement.
Last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Draft Environmental Impact Report that would allow several dams along the Klamath to be relicensed if certain environmental conditions were met. It estimated that the PacifiCorp hydroelectric project would operate at an annual loss of $27 million if fish ladders were installed. At the same time, the decision of an administrative law judge, acting in a new trial-type proceeding under the 2005 Energy Policy Act, ruled that fish ladders would have to be installed on Klamath River dams, suggesting that PacifiCorp will now have to decide between installing fish ladders or decommissioning dams.
The Governors of Oregon and California well recognize the environmental and natural resource challenges within the Klamath Basin. The summit will bring all groups with Klamath River Basin interests together, states, federal partners, fishermen, Tribes, PacifiCorp and other groups to resolve issues and return the Klamath River Basin to health.
To date, resolving Klamath issues has been a challenge because of the interconnected nature of water, energy, fishing, wildlife habitat, tribal land use and farming needs. PacifiCorp is currently seeking relicensing of its Hydro Project on the Klamath River, while many parties are calling for dam removal and river restoration. At the same time, commercial salmon catch in California and Oregon is expected to drop this year from recent averages, the state and federal lawmakers said in a recent letter to Senate appropriators.
Both Governors have been signatories to letters requesting Congressional relief for west coast commercial fisheries. And Governor Kulongoski has previously extended an invitation to federal agency heads to participate in a Klamath Summit. The joint announcement with Governor Schwarzenegger sets that plan in motion, and expands the Summit invitation focus to include members of Congress who share their concern over the lack of meaningful progress.
“We believe there is an important role for the federal government to play in crafting a long term solution to these challenges,” Governor Schwarzenegger said. “It is appropriate that the Federal agencies and Congress take an active role shaping a sustainable approach to protecting these vital resources.”
In more recent communications to Governor Kulongoski, the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce have voiced their support and commitment to resolving Klamath Basin issues, and in a Klamath summit.
To ensure that the Klamath Summit produces results, the Governors expect interested stakeholders to come prepared to present and discuss specific concepts and proposals, including possible legislative solutions. In advance of the summit, stakeholders will work to identify and prioritize issues and where possible, outline areas of agreement and disagreement, if meaningful progress is to be made.
PacifiCorp operates seven hydroelectric generating facilities along 65 miles of the Klamath River from the Link River Dam at Upper Klamath Lake to Iron Gate Dam. Recently, PacifiCorp has expressed their willingness to consider dam removal, provided that shareholder property rights and cost recovery issues are appropriately addressed.
In recent testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission, PacifiCorp noted that during the past 100 years, circumstances in the Klamath Basin have changed dramatically, impacted by Endangered Species Act requirements, Tribal Trust requirements, and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water management policies.
According to PacifiCorp, “these and other restrictions cause PacifiCorp to operate the Klamath Hydroelectric Project more for compliance than for generation. Making matters worse, return flow from the Klamath customers is unpredictable, unmanaged, and often occurs during high-water periods. Each of these factors has negative effects on PacifiCorp’s ability to use the Klamath River to generate hydroelectric power.” The testimony continues, “The result at best; PacifiCorp must adjust generation schedules to maintain system balance, compliance with ramp rates, reservoir elevation commitments, and downstream minimum flow requirements; at worst, PacifiCorp must spill water throughout its system and incur risk management costs; and, in no event can PacifiCorp rely on flow from the Klamath Irrigation Project when it schedules generation.”
“In light of PacifiCorp’s characterization of the value, it seems only appropriate that dam removal be explored as part of the discussion and quite frankly, as part of the eventual solution to restore Klamath River health,” said Schwarzenegger.
A date for the Summit will be determined once various schedules can be worked out.
Kulongoski? what is that, Klingon/Polish?
Victory for Klamath River salmon
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9976/1/343/
“The judge affirmed what we have been saying for years — the river is in a lot of pain caused by PacifiCorp’s dams,” said Steve Rothert of American Rivers.
PacifiCorp, recently acquired by billionaire Warren Buffett, had challenged the prescriptions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries Service.
“PacifiCorp’s Klamath Dams have been a disaster,” noted Glen Spain, Northwest region director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “These aging dams produce less than 2 percent of PacifiCorp’s energy, but have nearly destroyed a river that was once the third most productive salmon producing system in America. If there are any dams that should come down, these are the ones.”
It is astonishing to me that in a basin so full of "endangered" suckers that they are in every stock pond and exceed the carrying capacity of Upper Klamath Lake, and the "endangered" salmon are on sale for $4.99/lb. ("wild coho"), these fantastic lies have such traction. What a colossal failure of leadership in the Klamath Basin.
No one mentions the Tribes herding the salmon into gillnets with powerboats at the narrow mouth of the river; a few years ago, they were harvesting more than half the returning fall chinook. This subject has more lies printed about it than any other environmental issue on the West Coast, as far as I can tell.
Well, not "every" stock pond, but so many that several years ago a federal judge ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider whether the fish should be listed, and the Service has been ignoring the judge ever since.
Wasp needs to see this. The Austrian is stepping on a hornets nest.
Why don't you go worry about squirrles. This is serious stuff here.
Why am I not surprised by the dual citizen pulling crap like this. Why the hell does he continue to call himself Republican?
Yeah, I meant to ping a few folks but got sidetracked.
I think I'm gonna just HURL!!! This is a preliminary indicator of how hard this joker is gonna be to live under during the next four years... Mark My Words!!!
This wouldn't be any worse than having Bruce Babbit as CA Governor, or for that matter, his right hand man at Interior... John "The Fish Come First" Garamendi!!!
What's worse, no REPUBLICAN will ever have the intestinal fortitude to stop this pathetic dude from promoting this damaged thinking, or non-thinking attitude!!!
And some of you FReepers want the rest of us to cast our votes for this turkey in good conscience??? You've just GOT to be kidding me!!!
And straight from pww.org, the communist news source.
>>“We have the problems of water quality, water supply, listed species, energy generation, and agricultural sustainability expressed in countless ways in the Klamath Basin,” Governor Kulongoski said.<<
Pushing Agenda 21 hard for the 2010 meetings. Attaboy, Governor.
Walt my FRiend, I think it's getting close to take up the battle axe....
Just like first mortgage holders, or corporate bond holders, the property owner with water rights comes first and does NOT share common status with all other "claimants" or "stakeholders" or "claim-jumpers!
The property owner with inalienable and self-evidident property rights that has the rightful control of all his property and accompanying water rights wrested away from him by federal, state, local, or any other governmental entity is being denied one of the most fundamental and elementary reasons this nation was founded in 1776!!!
This right ranks right up there with freedom of speech, religion and the right to keep and bare arms to defend said property and it's inherint rights!!! What this Governor has suggested in this statement is blatantly UN-American in every respect!!!
Is your Republican taxer and spender as full of GANG-GREEN as our Repbulican borrower and spender?
Best not "bare" those arms or they will be confiscated, SW. ;-)
(I'm just tryin' to keep that sense of humor you were talkin' about earlier).
That is really the no-kidding and righteous actual Communist News Sorce and they're calling it a vast victory!!! I think I've actually understated the magnitude of the Un-American attitude of our petulant/flattulent CA Governor!!!
Am I the only one that has the guts to say it right here in FR??? Right before an election??? What??? After we fought the good fight for the Klamath Farmers in the not so distant past???
Any "CONsensus" arrived at at any "summit" called by these goofy Governors will innur to the benefit of the "claim-jumpers" and will serve to strip the rightful owners of water rights for "the highest and best use" of the water as has ALWAYS been well known and understood by EVERYONE to be for the needs of humans above all else.
We are NOT a nation that was established to create affirmative action for fish and plants and welfare for wildlife!!!
Neither Schwartzenegger, not the Oregone Governor can make this come out a "win/win" situation that helps both the economics of humans simultaneously with the needs of every form of wildlife from fish, to foul, to bacteria!!!
The flaura and fauna are important, but they do NOT come first before human needs!!! If that were true, then we would have sacrificed all of America to the animal world and indigious savages from the get-go!!!
If the people that populate FR won't stand strong against this preverted altruism while calling themselves "conservatives," then all is lost as far as I'm concerned and I'll hang my head in shame for having hung with you all!!!
A dim from Oregon who has been governor here for too long. Saxton, although more of a RINO, may defeat him this year.
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