Another Klamath River Dam Newspaper Editorial: “These are dams with obvious problems”
Another Klamath River Dam Newspaper Editorial: “These are dams with obvious problems”
Opponents of Klamath River Dam removal often suggest it’s “insane” to tear down four perfectly good hydro-electric dams.
The problem is, the aging structures on the Klamath River bear little resemblance to “perfectly good” dams — especially if you value salmon, steelhead, water quality and a healthy river.
This editorial in the Redding Record-Searchlight apparently agrees:
Rep. Tom McClintock, whose district includes the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin in Modoc County, has repeatedly argued that “to tear down four perfectly good hydro-electric dams at enormous cost is insane.”
Well, yes, it would be insane if they were perfectly good dams. They are not.
It was in 2007 under that den of environmental radicals known as the George W. Bush administration that federal resource agencies, in compliance with the law, insisted that relicensing Pacific Power’s four dams on the long-troubled river would require installing fish passages. It was the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency, which is not a sub rosa branch of the Sierra Club but routinely renews dam licenses, that found that the dams would be money-losers if they complied with today’s laws. It was Pacific Power the dams’ corporate owner, which has a bigger stake than anyone in keeping them operating that decided its best bet was to let their license lapse and dismantle them.
Perfectly good dams? If they were, they’d have been relicensed long ago, as so many of PG&E’s dams are. These are dams with obvious problems.
With the privately owned Iron Gate, Copco1, Copco2 and J.C. Boyle dams set to operate at a $20 million annual loss — and that’s assuming PacifiCorp (a business) would be willing to pay upwards of $300 million more to upgrade them than remove them — the decision to take them out is based on economics and the health of a fishery.
Not the relatively meager amounts of power they generate (estimated at a paltry 62 mwh annually if relicensed).
1 Comment
The dams will come down because if they were relicensed under current law they would lose $20 million a year. With Warren Buffett behind it, PacifiCorp has negotiated a sweetheart deal to offload the non-performing assets. Clever feds and their “diverse” allies want to hitch a bad water deal to that train. It is a shame that Cal Trout is on this deal. Here’s why:
A deal that puts privileged federal irrigators ahead of fish, that ignores the best science, and that favors some tribal, irrigation and environmental interests over other tribal, irrigation and environmental interests will not restore the Klamath River or recover Klamath Salmon.
Delay congress after congress seeking bad legislation in a divided Congress is what PacifiCorp wants. If that happens they continue to operate salmon-killing dams at a profit, i.e. status quo, without having to make the changes already ordered in the FERC process.
The quickest path to dam removal is to get back to the normal FERC process. The sooner Cal Trout and other deal promoters realize that the sooner the dams will come out.
Now is when we see who really cares about Klamath Salmon and who cares more about their narrow self-interest. If those so-called salmon champions like PCFFA and the Yurok Tribe refuse to go back to FERC and insist on waiting for the next election in hope of getting their self-serving deals through Congress, they will be complicit in killing Klamath Salmon.