[env-trinity] Dam removal plan to feds by end of 2016?

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20160720/dam-removal-plan-to-feds-by-end-of-2016&template=printart
Dam removal plan to feds by end of 2016?

By Will Houston, Eureka Times-StandardWednesday, July 20, 2016A plan to decommission and remove four dams along California and Oregon’s Klamath River may go before a federal agency for consideration before the end of the year. But Karuk Tribe Natural Resources Policy Adviser Craig Tucker said that a decision on the now 6-year-old dam-removal proposal could still face obstacles.“There may be attempts to litigate to prevent us from removing the dams,” Tucker said. “... I feel like things are getting better for the Klamath in the near future.”
Decommissioning dams
Signed on by state governors, federal officials, tribal government leaders, environmental groups and the dam-owning company PacifiCorp in April, the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement seeks to remove the four hydroelectric dams — Copco 1, Copco 2, Iron Gate and J.C. Boyle — by 2020 in order to improve water quality for fish and downstream water users. The agreement must gain approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before dams can be removed as well as water quality permits from both California and Oregon.If implemented, the project is purported to be the largest river restoration project in U.S. history.The project is set to cost around $450 million, with PacifiCorp ratepayers contributing $200 million and California contributing $250 million through its 2014 water bond, Proposition 1.A nonprofit company, the Klamath River Restoration Corporation, was created earlier this year to take ownership of the four dams from PacifiCorp and to submit the dam decommissioning plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Tucker said the plan is expected to be submitted “within the next few weeks.”Meanwhile, the Klamath River Restoration Corporation is selecting its board of directors, picked by the nearly 40 signatories to the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement. The Karuk Tribe announced its own appointment on Wednesday, appointing Hoopa Valley Tribe member and former tribal councilwoman Wendy “Poppy” George who has confronted PacifiCorp’s parent company — American entrepreneur Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. — and the former dam owner Sottish Power over the last decade.“We couldn’t find a more qualified or trustworthy individual to take on this important responsibility,” Karuk Natural Resources Director Leaf Hillman said in a statement.“We know Wendy will fight for our river and overcome whatever hurdles are put between us and dam removal.”Other board members include former Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, Kulongoski’s former natural resource advisor Michael Carrier, and former California Natural Resources Secretary Lester Snow, according to Tucker.“To me I just feel like they’re putting together the A-Team to do this,” Tucker said.The board will be tasked with setting up funding contracts with various public utility commissions, finding a contractor to remove the dams and maintaining a line of communication between federal regulators during the decommissioning process.
Anticipated litigation
In an April letter to the signatories of the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors stated that a lawsuit was imminent.“The lawsuits are already lined up and ready to define the next significant era of water/politics for the Klamath River,” the letter states. “The ham-handed handling of this latest effort (with “secret” meetings, lack of transparency, and lack of authority, to name the most obvious examples) to force some parties’ one-and-only solution on the Klamath Basin has only provided even more gist for the legal battle that will come.“The blatant violation of the federal Endangered Species Act and the potential extirpation of the coho salmon from the Klamath River is only the most egregious violation of federal law,” the letter continues.Attempts to contact several Siskiyou County supervisors went unreturned on Wednesday. Siskiyou County Administrator Terry Barber was unavailable for comment.New York City-based attorney Lawrence Kogan also states that a lawsuit is warranted “to put the government on notice that it has to be held to account for all of its misrepresentation and lies.”Kogan said he had previously worked as a specialty counsel by Siskiyou County and the Klamath Irrigation District and was a former advisor for the George W. Bush administration. The attorney further states that the dam removal agreement fails to address toxic sediments in the dam reservoirs.Sweet River Sciences fish biologist Joshua Strange said that $1 million in funding was used to conduct a sediment assessment of the dams and their reservoirs. The results found there to be very little contaminants that are typically a concern in dam removals, such as mercury or the industrial chemical polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), in the reservoir sediments.“The analysis showed there to be no significant concerns in terms of contaminants of sediment in the reservoirs slated for removal,” Strange said.Strange further stated that Upper Klamath Lake and its wetlands have acted as natural sediment traps.“Those sediment traps have greatly decreased the amount of sediment that was moving down the main-stem Klamath into those reservoirs,” Strange said. “That combined with the stable geology of the Cascade region means there is not a problematic level sediments when it comes to removing these dams and reservoirs.”Kogan also claims that Klamath Basin irrigators will lose access to water, which will lead to a loss of crops and a greater reliance on internationally imported produce.“It’s all about the fish,” Kogan said about the agreement. “The people don’t matter.”A bill known as the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, or KBRA, was meant to address these water sharing concerns between tribes and irrigators in the Klamath Basin.The Klamath Tribes of Oregon — the tribal government made up of the Klamath and Modoc tribes and Yahooskin Band of Snake Indians — had began a process in 1975 known as adjudication to settle water rights in the Sycan, Wood and Williamson rivers, which flow through the former reservation lands of the Klamath Tribes into Upper Klamath Lake. The process ended in 2013 with the tribes gaining senior water rights, causing irrigators to challenge the decision.The KBRA and another agreement known as the Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement reached in April 2014 would ensure irrigators would have more water for their land than would be allowed if the tribes called upon their fully adjudicated water rights, according to proponents.However, the KBRA expired in late December 2015 after Republicans in the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee failed to advance the bill. California’s 1st District Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who represents Siskiyou County, was one of the committee members who openly opposed any dam removal provisions.A new agreement announced this year — known as the 2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement (KPFA) — seeks to help Klamath Basin irrigators and farmers deal with the expected arrival of fish into waters currently blocked by the four hydroelectric dams. The agreement also commits stakeholders to work over the next year to form other agreements meant to resolve water rights conflicts and provide protections for endangered fish in Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon. Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20160721/8f400962/attachment.html>