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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (8176)	11/16/2006 3:30:38 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Tribes, irrigators differ on removing Klamath River dams newsregister.com KLAMATH FALLS — As federal regulators consider the future of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, tribal members urged them to remove the dams to restore salmon, and irrigators argued that they should be kept to maintain low-cost hydropower critical to agriculture. The first in a series of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hearings was held Tuesday on its draft environmental impact statement for relicensing four dams on the Klamath River owned by PacifiCorp, based in Portland. Other hearings are being held in Yreka, Calif., Eureka, Calif., Newport, Ore., and North Bend, Ore. The agency is considering options ranging from trucking fish around dams, which PacifiCorp favors, to installation of fish ladders. NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of restoring struggling salmon runs, has urged that salmon be allowed to swim past the dams on their own to reach 350 miles of spawning habitat blocked for nearly a century. The agency has said removing the dams is the best way to do that. Several Klamath Tribes members called for removing the dams. "We're hungry for that fish not only physically, but also spiritually," said fisherman Don Gentry. "Please return those fish so we can be the people the creator intended us to be." Tribal members said their 1864 treaty with the U.S. government gave Indians the right to fish area streams forever. They added that a promise by California-Oregon Power Co. to install fish ladders at the Klamath River's first dam went unfulfilled. "I view all rivers as blood to the world," said Spayne Martinez, a 15-year-old Chiloquin High School sophomore. "The people who depend on the salmon have suffered too long." Irrigators said removing dams would drive power costs to unacceptable levels. "We depend on low-cost power to keep our communities whole," said Scott Seus. "Today, more than ever, low-cost power is essential to irrigated agriculture." He and others said the Klamath Reclamation Project benefits the Klamath River, and therefore the salmon, by returning almost all of the diverted water used for irrigation. "Without the Klamath irrigation project and the water stored within, there would be inconsistent flows that would result in less power production and a volatile ecosystem," Seus said. An administrative law judge this week recommended that the California Public Utilities Commission deny farmers' request to hang onto electric rates that are less than 10 percent of those paid by other irrigators, which have been in place since 1917. The judge found that they failed to show the irrigation district regulates and increases the amount of water available to the dams, so could not claim compensation from PacifiCorp.