GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The Bush administration has announced a nonbinding agreement for removing four dams along the Klamath River, a key to resolving the basin’s long-standing trouble balancing the water needs of farms and fish.

While not a final answer, the deal represents a milestone toward what would become the biggest dam removal project in U.S. history.

It also would help resolve issues at the root of the 2001 shut-off of irrigation to thousands of acres of farmland under enforcement by U.S. marshals and the 2002 deaths of 70,000 adult salmon in the river after irrigation water was restored.

The agreement in principle reached in Sacramento, Calif., was to be signed Thursday by the U.S. Department of Interior, the utility PacifiCorp and the governors of Oregon and California.

The non-binding agreement apparently endorses the controversial Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which doesn’t enjoy universal support among stakeholders, but might represent our single best chance to get dams removed.

My concerns?

• Removal isn’t slated to begin until 2020, and a lot can happen before then – including an ongoing dwindling of the already-endangered salmon runs
• By then, the costs of dam removal will have skyrocketed (projected $450 million), and the agreement removes PacifiCorp from liability and limits ratepayer (I am one) liability to $200 million

There’s plenty more to be said on this issue, which I’ve admittedly done a poor job covering (a guy’s only got so much time).

For a fairly skeptical perspective on the whole Klamath Dam issue, visit Felice Pace’s excellent-if-high-voltage Klamblog.

[UPDATE: I just posted a brief history of the very, very contentious Klamath River salmon/dams/irrigators issue here. Worth ten minutes of your day if you're not wholly up to speed on the Klamath.]

What’s a Healthy Klamath Mean?

A healthy Klamath would likely turn into a sustainable economic bonanza for an economically despressed Sisikiyou County (home of the Trout Underground), though that reality didn’t stop our largely anti-environment, anti-sustainable-anything Board of Supervisors from fighting dam removal, often through scare tactics and lies about toxins in sediment loads.

Healthy salmon & steelhead runs on the Klamath River would likely see a mirror of the crowds of people fishing the Trinity River (now that a little water’s been put back in). Simply put, Northwest-based Undergrounders may soon have a whole new river to fish.

See you on the Klamath, Tom Chandler.

klamath, klamath river, dam removal, klamath salmon, pacificorp

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Fans of corporate spin will no doubt find the following passage amusing in the face of the paragraph we’ve placed below it:

PacifiCorp Energy President Rob Lasich says the settlement shows that sincere negotiations can produce positive results for fish as well as PacifiCorp’s customers.

The Portland-based utility agreed to negotiations after the conservation group Oregon Wild filed notice it would sue under the Endangered Species Act…

OK, we get it; PacifiCorp won’t engage in "sincere negotiations" until it’s forced to by the threat of a lawsuit. Still, it’s a good result for Oregon Wild and Klamath fisheries (a little good news, eh?).

And guess what? They say it’s still cheaper to remove the four Klamath dams than it is to keep them (these are the same dams that are beating the crap out of the Klamath Salmon runs and commercial and sport fisheries).

From the Karuk tribe press release:

The document includes an economic analysis that shows that the removal of the lower four Klamath dams would save ratepayers $7 million dollars a year which will likely make it difficult for PacifiCorp to recover expenses from their customers. The FERC analysis showed that the dams would operate at a net loss of more than $20 million a year if relicensed.

PacifiCorp wants to retain the dams in spite of the Klamath salmon’s rapid march towards extinction (earning them an “Axis of Evil” label from the Trout Underground), and this will make it much harder for them to do so.

So… get rid of the damn things already. And then we’ll see the economic power of a healthy river. After all, the Trinity finally got some water put back into it, and now you can hardly find a place to park.

Imagine what happens if the Klamath comes back to even a shadow of its former salmon/steelhead runs…

See you at the dam removal party, Tom Chandler.