[env-trinity] Klamath Herald and News- Following the money: The Klamath dams are a massive investment

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.heraldandnews.com/news/article_dccd670a-5d21-11e1-bb18-0019bb2963f4.html 
Following the money: The Klamath dams are a massive investment
By JOEL ASCHBRENNER H&N Staff Reporter | Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 9:00 am
There's bound to be plenty of politics involved with management of the Klamath River, because there are hundreds of millions of dollars involved.
There are millions involved in infrastructure, millions involved in resources, millions in jobs, millions in property taxes.
As reporters traveled down the river and back late last year for this series, the money and the politics were ever present.
 
Klamath River dams and hydropower plants, all totaled, represent a massive investment.
PacifiCorp's dams were built between 1903 and 1962. The hydroelectric plants, operating at maximum potential, could produce enough electricity to power 70,000 homes.
They also provide permanent jobs, property tax revenue and recreational opportunities, opponents of dam removal say.
But those same dams and plants have impacts that never were accurately measured and mitigated, say proponents of removal. The dams cripple multi-million-dollar coastal fisheries and historic tribal fisheries, and removing them would create thousands of temporary jobs, they say.
Additionally, PacifiCorp officials say removing the dams would be more cost-effective than relicensing them, which would require adding fish ladders and screens.
Here's a look at the economy of the Klamath River dams:
Power can be replaced, officials say
PacifiCorp operates seven dams on the Klamath River system.
The six hydroelectric dams have a generating capacity of 169 megawatts, but, on average, produce about half that much, depending on demand for power and availability of water to send through powerhouses, said Pacific Power regional community manager Toby Freeman.
Only the Link River and Keno dams are operated to manage water levels - both provide irrigation water for the Klamath Reclamation Project. The other dams are managed specifically to produce hydroelectric power.
The Klamath River project represents less than 2 percent of PacifiCorp's energy portfolio. By comparison, PacifiCorp's Lewis River hydroelectric developments can produce up to 510 megawatts at full capacity, nearly 5 percent of the company's power generating potential, Freeman said.
Four of the Klamath River Dams - J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1 and No. 2, and Iron Gate - are proposed for removal under the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement and the related Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement.
To relicense the dams, PacifiCorp would have to add fish ladders, which would reduce their generating capacity by about 25 percent by diverting more water away from powerhouses, said PacifiCorp spokesman Bob Gravely.
Replacing the Klamath River dams' renewable energy won't be difficult, PacifiCorp officials say. The company has developed nearly 1,600 megawatts of new wind energy in the past five years.
Removal would eliminate and create jobs
Dam removal would eliminate dozens of jobs at the dams and their powerhouses, but would create thousands more construction and restoration jobs, according to a draft environmental impact study.
According to the study, dam removal would eliminate 49 PacifiCorp jobs and 18 recreational jobs. About 1,400 temporary construction jobs and 4,600 other jobs would be created during 15 years of restoration projects.
Dam removal supporters champion the plan to restore the free-flowing river as a job creator, while opponents say replacing permanent jobs in the private sector with federally funded temporary jobs is a net loss.
Klamath, Siskiyou could lose tax revenue
Klamath and Siskiyou counties stand to lose property tax dollars with the removal of the four dams.
In Klamath County, the J.C. Boyle Dam is valued at $17.8 million and generates about $530,000 a year for local taxing districts, said county assessor Rafael Hernandez.
Siskiyou County, home to three of the dams, would lose about $1 million a year from its approximately $27 million discretionary fund if the dams come out, said county supervisor Jim Cook.
"That would be a huge hit," he said.
Included in the KBRA are means to mitigate some of the losses, though in lopsided fashion.
The agreement includes $3.2 million for Klamath County taxing districts over 20 years to make up for decreased property values due to the reduction of water deliveries on the Klamath Reclamation Project.
Similar funding for Siskiyou County is not guaranteed. A California water bond measure would provide Siskiyou County with $20 million to supplement lost property tax revenue from the dams and up to $250 million to pay for dam removal. But the $11 billion Safe, Clean and Reliable Water Supply Act could be delayed from the November ballot, downsized or scrapped all together due to concerns over the costs, Cook said.
"We'd just as soon the dams not come out, rather than they buy us out somehow," he said.
Fisheries would benefit from removal
The Klamath River dams cost fisheries millions every year, dam removal proponents say.
Glen Spain, northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, advocates removing the dams. The dams block anadromous fish (species such as salmon that can pass from salt to fresh water) from migrating to spawning habitat upstream and disrupt the river's natural flow, he said. And, he said, the reservoirs behind the dams hold warm, algae-laden water that is detrimental to fish.
Today, the Pacific salmon fishery fed by the Klamath River is a $100 million to $150 million industry.
It was once the third largest salmon producing river in the continental U.S., but degraded water quality changed that, Spain said. Klamath River fall chinook salmon populations are 10 percent of their historical populations and coho salmon are down to 2 percent, he said.
Spain said the health of Klamath River salmon affects fishermen from Monterey, Calif., to the Columbia River.
"Whether we have fish or we don't; whether we have jobs or we don't; whether we pay our mortgages or we don't all depends on the health of the Klamath River," he said.
But dam removal opponents say taking the dams out could do more harm than good to fisheries. Some speculate that breaching the dams will send a wall of dirty, sediment-laden water downstream, wiping out fish habitat, such as the beds of coarse gravel critical for spawning.
An environmental impact study about dam removal released in September stated there is an estimated 13.4 million cubic yards of sediment behind the Klamath River dams, much of which would remain on the banks if the dams were removed.
Upriver, the Klamath Tribes have had no access to migrating steelhead and salmon populations since 1918, when Copco No. 1 was built. The Tribes were guaranteed the right to harvest the fish in the treaty of 1864, said Don Gentry, vice chair of the Klamath Tribes.
"The loss of historic salmon and steelhead runs in the Upper Klamath Basin was particularly devastating to the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin people, who relied upon the fish as significant food sources, vital to the traditional economy of the Klamath Tribes," Gentry said in an email.
It's widely debated if and how many fish would migrate as far upstream as Upper Klamath Lake if the dams were removed.
 
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