9/20/11
A powerful case for breaching four economically and functionally obsolete dams
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar won't make his formal declaration on the future of four dams on the Klamath River for six months, but it's as good as done. You can write it down: Those dams are history.
A draft environmental impact statement due for release Thursday will make a powerful case for the world's largest dam removal and restoration effort. In a speech Monday in San Francisco, Salazar previewed the report, revealing that it puts the cost at taking down the four dams at roughly $290 million -- far less than the previously announced $450 million price tag.
That's encouraging news, and so, too, are some of the other numbers in the environmental analysis. Salazar said that dam removal and watershed restoration could add more than 4,600 jobs over 14 years. Meanwhile, delivering more reliable water supplies could strengthen agriculture and add hundreds of farm jobs annually. You can question those job estimates -- they are educated guesses -- but it's obvious that stronger salmon runs and consistent irrigation deliveries are going to mean more jobs. You only have to look back five years, to 2006, when low returns of Klamath salmon forced a near-total shutdown of the West Coast salmon fishery, wiping out jobs and badly damaging coastal economies.
Moreover, there's no good argument left for keeping these dams. Their federal licenses have expired and complying with today's fish passage and water quality regulations would require hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments, and cost their owner PacifiCorp, and its ratepayers, far more than the 2 percent surcharge applied to help defray the costs of dam removal and replacing their generation.
Everyone can see that the Klamath is a slow-moving and sick river that ill-serves everyone who depends on it, from farmers to fishermen to Native American tribes. Looking at it now, a river plagued by toxic algae that killed 60,000 returning salmon in 2002, it's hard to believe that once upon a time the Klamath supported the third largest salmon run on the entire West Coast.
The Klamath will never be that river again. The guaranteed irrigation withdrawals always will be a limiting factor, even if the federal government delivers the hoped-for half-billion-dollar investment called for in the Klamath River accords worked out by a diverse collection of more than 40 interest groups over the past five years.
But the Klamath can and will be a better, healthier, cleaner and more productive river than it's been for decades. Removing the four dams would allow threatened wild coho salmon to reclaim 68 miles of historical habitat, and open more than 400 miles of river to the hardy steelhead that used to power up the Klamath. It's surely true that most of those miles and miles of river are in poor condition. But putting the Klamath right begins with getting it moving again.
In his speech Monday, Salazar said "naysayers" are still trying to unravel the Klamath accords and stop the breaching of the dams. Critics of dam removal abound in places such as Oregon's Klamath County and California's Siskiyou County. But from here, it's hard to see what they think they are protecting by fighting for the dams.
The Klamath dams, like those being dismantled on Washington's Elwha River, are economically and functionally obsolete. Preserving them would cost far more than breaching them. These dams are coming down, and when they finally do, the river and everyone who depends on it will be better off.
