Skip over global navigation

The Klamath Example: How to Tear Down a Dam

AIR DATE: Thursday, February 14th 2008
How many constituencies does it take to demolish a dam?

...in five easy steps.

Step 1: Wait until the dam's operating license is up for renewal (once every 50 years).

Step 2: Create consensus among everyone affected by the dam. Include:

  • Two state governments
  • Three county governments
  • Four Native Tribes
  • Nearly a dozen conservation groups
  • Federal Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and Fish and Wildlife
  • Farmers
  • Ranchers
  • Recreational boaters
Convince farmers to accept a ten-fold hike in their irrigation power bills, and to adhere to additional Endangered Species Act regulations. Convince Tribes and environmentalists not to sue the farmers if some endangered salmon are accidentally killed. And, according to one enviromental activist I talked to, tell recreational boaters that... not everyone can get what they want.

Step 3: Determine how to deal with the millions of pounds of sediment collecting behind the dams.

Step 4: Get the owner of the dam -- in this case Pacificorp, a.k.a. Pacific Power -- to agree.

And, finally, Step 5: Determine who will pay the tab ($200-500 million dollars by one estimate).

It's a tedious and glacier-slow process. But there are four dams on the Klamath River that have actually arrived at Step 4, and are lobbying hard. It's not a done deal, but things are progressing enough for one local environmentalist to say "it's only a matter of time."

And if it does goes through, according to The New York Times, it would represent "one of the most far-reaching efforts ever to reverse the harm done by human intervention on a river."

What would it take to get Pacific Power on board with this agreement? And if this fragile alliance can stick together, are there lessons here for other seemingly intractable environmental questions?

Photo credit: DaseinDesign / Flickr / Creative Commons

GUESTS:

Tagged as: dam · klamath · pacific power

COMMENTS: (10 total)

newest first | oldest first
My gosh, why does it appear that Think Out Loud misses some major problems with the Klamath "settlement". First, some very prominent conservation groups and tribes like Oregon Wild, Waterwatch, North Coast Environmental Center and the Hoopa Tribe were either excluded from or have rejected the settlement "agreement". Plus, agribusiness DOES NOT support adhering to Endangered Species Act protections. Additionally the "settlement" does not guarantee any water in the river for endangered salmon. The best part is that PacificCorp, the dam owners, were excluded from the talks and have never agreed to remove the dams. Please OPB, I expect better journalism and public affairs programs. I'm sad to say it looks like you are becoming more and more like commercial, mindless radio. It's not to late to get back on track.
madrone —

Login to reply

The teaser for this story was highly inaccurate. No party has signed this proposal. Many never will unless it is substantially improved. It has substantial and unacceptable flaws that must be addressed. It is a product of the Bush Administration, which the Daily Astorian recently described in an Op-ED on this deal as the "most villainous environmental administration in history." Even Greg Walden has advocated for a go slow approach on this stinker.

Let's start with process concerns -

First the two Oregon conservation groups with a long track record in the Klamath - WaterWatch of Oregon and Oregon Wild were summarily kicked out of the negotiations by the Bush Admninistration and its minions - from a process expressly set up as a consensus based process mind you. Why? Because those two groups refused to accede to Administration threats that unless all present signed a deal term sheet early in the negotiation, the Administration would refuse to file strong mandatory conditions for the new FERC license for PacifiCorp's hydro project.

Second, the Klamath Water Users Association, due to highly placed political connections in Washington DC, had what was essentially veto power over the drafting process that resulted in the "deal" that is now being touted (by OPB even, for shame!) as providing "peace on the river." Peace indeed. The Klamath Water Users Association significantly overreached on this negotiation.

The process was highly flawed, even putting aside the basic premise that your government should not be setting public policy on these issues in secret.

Next let's look at flaws in the proposed deal -

1. There is no deal to remove any dams. That was the premise of the entire negotiation. PacifiCorp was not even present in the secret negotiations in much of 2006 or all of 2007.

2. This proposed deal would do the following:

a. Institutionalize commercial lease land farming on 22,000 acres of two of the premier National Wildlife Refuges in the nation for waterfowl for the next 50 years. At the same time, the "deal" will even funnel lease land farming payments to the Bureau of Reclamation to pay off the capital debts of the Klamath Project Irrigators for the Project. It is a bad deal for the refuges, particularly Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

b. Guarantee specific allocations of water to the Klamath Project irrigators (at levels above what they have ever used historically in certain water year types) while providing absolutely no streamflow gaurantees for fish in the Klamath River, including those (coho salmon) listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Far from ADHERING to the ESA as reported above, the Klamath Project irrigators would instead by provided safe harbor FROM the ESA. It's incredible to this reader that OPB does not understand or report correctly that distinction here. Don't take my word for it. Read the agreement.

c. The proposed deal would undermine the Endangered Species Act by requiring the parties that sign to advocate that the water deliveries provided to the Klamath Project Irrigators are legally sufficient for Endangered Species Act purposes, even though models show that the contemplated water allocations will result in less water in the river for threatened coho salmon than under the current Biological Opinion or under the current best available science that the recent National Research Council vetted (Hardy Phase II flow study, among others. Frankly, there appears to be no evidence of any biological justification or scientific vetting of the flow levels in the agreement by the state of Oregon.

d. The proposed deal would wheel cheap Columbia River power to the Klamath and provide a direct payment/subsidy of $41,000,000 to basin irrigators as a power subsidy.

Quite contrary to what is reported above, irrigation interests have NEVER accepted voluntarily a ten fold increase in their power rates. That's hogwash. Rather, the Oregon and California Public Utility Commissions detemined, after a trial in each PUC, that the old rates paid for power by basin ag interests were discriminatory and not permitted by law. Oregon is now ramping Klamath irrigators to the standard power rate paid by other ag interests in Oregon using a seven year ramp. California is using a four year ramp. It's baloney to suggest, as above, that irrigators somehow voluntarily agreed to a power rate increase or that they gave up anything related to power in this negotiation. You also fail to point out that they previously enjoyed power rates that were approximately 1/10th what other Oregon farmers pay.

e. The deal would turn over water management on the Klamath Project to the Klamath Project and give the Klamath Project irrigators $92,000,000 to come up with their own water management plan, in private and without any public review or scrutiny. That is directly contrary to how we manage water in Oregon. Water is a public resource and the state has a legal duty to manage it through public and transparent processes. What will likely happen here is the users will simply turn to groundwater. But in the Klamath, groundwater and surface water are essentially one resource. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is no solution.

These are just a few of the chestnuts in the proposed deal. There are many others. In sum, this is a political compromise achieved in secret through a process run by the Bush Administration. The deal is not based on sound science or the biological or water needs of ESA listed species or the affected National Wildlife Refuges in the basin.

I think the Hoopa Tribe got it right when the tribe called this an "old style, Wild West water deal." The Klamath has a long history of backroom dealing, political compromises, and ignoring and manipulating science. This deal is more of the same and it will meet with substantial opposition until it addresses meaningfully the issues above and others.
steelhead —

Login to reply

I am really disappointed in OPB. The blurb above and the teaser on the radio today are both wildly inaccurate. This isn?t the standard of journalism I?ve come to expect from public broadcasting.

First, there is no Klamath ?How to Tear Down a Dam? plan. There is no deal on dam removal in the Klamath, period. Pacificorp, the owner of the dams on the river, hasn?t been engaged in the Klamath ?settlement? talks for over a year.

What has been produced instead is a plan to guarantee agribusiness in the Klamath Basin generous water deliveries, without providing a similar guarantee for salmon that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. That isn?t going to recover the fish, and is it illegal. The ?settlement? also includes a plan to lock in Bush administration policies promoting commercial agricultural development on over 22,000 acres of land on Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges. And it would divvy up nearly $1 billion US tax dollars among every special interest group in the Klamath Basin.

That is why the Hoopa Valley Tribe and several environmental groups involved in the talks have rejected the ?settlement.? And the two major Oregon groups that were kicked out of the talks by the Bush administration (Oregon Wild and WaterWatch) continue to oppose the deal.
Please research beyond that New York Times story and the hype and spin being put out by backers of the ?settlement?. The Hoopa Valley Tribe opposes the deal because they do not believe it will recover salmon runs:

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/699376.html

An accurate analysis of what is in the ?settlement? and what isn?t:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-klamath16jan16,1,6366227.story?coll=la-headlines-california

A Sacramento Bee story on two scientific analyses showing the ?settlement? won?t recover salmon:

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/553847.html

Finally, please do some research on the ?ten fold increase? in Klamath irrigators? electricity power rates. Klamath irrigators enjoyed a massive subsidy for their electricity rates for nearly a century, paid for by families throughout Oregon. The ?ten fold increase? brought them up to the same rate paid by every other farmer in Oregon.

http://rgweb.registerguard.com/news/2006/04/17/ed.edit.klamath.phn.0417.p1.php?section=opinion
KlamathAngler —

Login to reply

Hi. This is Scott Silver. I work for OPB, I wrote the blog post above, and I want to address some of the issues that you all have brought up.

Madrone, your point is well taken. When I wrote that step 2 involved creating "consensus among everyone affected by the dam," I should have specified who I was talking about, and I was absolutely wrong to use the word "consensus."

The groups that have been a part of this proposed (and it is still just proposed) agreement include the Klamath Water Users Association, federal, state and county governments, the Karuk tribe, the Yurok tribe, conservation and environmental groups including Trout Unlimited and American Rivers, and many others. But you are correct to point out that the farmers, fisherman, environmentalists and the tribes all have those among their own who do not support the agreement.

What we do have is a proposed agreement from a large group of interests that have traditionally been at odds with one another in the basin. And the questions that we intend to address on tomorrow's show include: what have each of these interests compromised in coming to this agreement? Who disagrees with the proposal and why? And what would it take to get PacifiCorp on board with the proposal?

This post is light-hearted and even flip at times, and I no longer think it was a wise decision to describe the conflict over these dams using such a tone. I apologize if you were offended by this decidedly light description of the situation, and I certainly don?t want it to imply that we aren't committed to diving into the nuances of this proposed agreement and the surrounding issues.

However, I am confident that we will be able to take a much more thorough and detailed look at this issue during the show itself, which is airing Thursday, February 14th, from 9 to 10 am. I highly encourage you to take a listen and decide for yourself. And we will be reading your posts here in the meantime.
Scott Silver —

Login to reply

Hi Scott,

Thanks for responding to the concerns people are posting here. I think you are still misinformed about the Klamath and the settlement however when you say "What we do have is a proposed agreement from a large group of interests that have traditionally been at odds with one another in the basin."

The reality is that the environmental groups that support the settlement have not been involved in the Klamath water issues before, they got involved in the basin over the dam relicensing. From the get-go this has created a lot of tension, as they have never been advocates issues like river flows and the National Wildlife Refuges, and have not been willing to oppose the agreement over the harm it causes to those values (like Oregon conservation groups did).

A more accurate description of this is that it is an agreement that gets the Bush administration and agricultural interests to support dam removal by agreeing to subordinate the water requirements of endangered fish, the needs of the wildlife refuges, etc... to their demands. That isn't a balanced compromise.

I'm glad to hear you will be exploring the issue of what groups oppose the deal and why. What spokesperson for Oregon Wild or WaterWatch will you have on the show?
KlamathAngler —
Thanks for the response Scott.

Putting aside questions of the tone of the post, the post is still inaccurate on two major points:

1. The power rate point is incorrect. The irrigators gave up nothing voluntarily on rates in the negotiation. The 10 fold increase in rates that you reference in the post was solely the result of two trials in the Oregon and California Public Utility Commissions, not any voluntary action in the negotiation by the irrigators in the negotiations.

2. In the proposed deal, the irrigators do not agree to adhere to the Endangered Species Act. Rather, Klamath Project irrigators would be protected FROM ESA liabitity if they stayed within the very generous water allocations provided for in the proposed deal. Irrigation gave up nothing on this point. And the distinction is very significant.

We really need to get beyond the glib press statements on this proposal and understand the details of this proposal. I hope OPB is up to that.

I would also point out that the one ostensible reason for release of the proposal was to let the public review it and comment. However, neither Oregon or the Federal government have set up any mechanism to receive, review and repsond to public comments. Instead, the public review and comment happens anecdotally in posts like this one. Hardly adequate for a proposal of this magnitude invloving public resources of this importance.
steelhead —

Login to reply

Why is farming in this area so important that those involved are willing to sacrifice both the salmon and the renewable energy the hydropower provides? I grew up on a farm and I understand the feelings of farmers, but if the area requires that much irrigation, it is not suitable for farming in the first place.
echolynch —

Login to reply

I heard the explanation by the gentleman from waterwatch as to how certain groups were disincluded from the process. It sounded totally plausible given what I know about how these decisions are made. I would like to hear the other side of the story, as his judgment was called into question toward the end of the show. Any takers?

If this version is correct, then it is very misleading to call this conclusion a "consensus." The local tribes and invested environmental groups absolutely MUST be included in any agreement touting itself as a consensus.

I think the last two callers were both laboring under a related misconception. While it is true that dams don't release greenhouse gases, their affects on local wildlife can be and frequently are devastating. Dams are a trade off of problems, not a solution. Where in the decision making process does wildlife get a say? That might sound silly, but sustaining our outdoor areas is important to our Northwest culture. Also, I don't think it is feasible to stop cutting trees in the northwest altogether -- but we can do it much more efficiently and in a way that benefits the local communities to a much greater extent (e.g. milling Oregon-cut trees in Oregon rather than exporting them). That the last caller claims his group can "log in a way that is good for wildlife" calls his whole point into question. You can't log in a way that is good for wildlife, you can only try to minimize your affects. As to his point about litigation, since environmental groups are frequently left out of the decision making process, litigation is often their ONLY option. THAT is where wildlife gets its say. People who are willing to speak up for the voiceless in this way should be congratulated and thanked for their efforts. Open up the process to these groups more, and you will get less litigation.
gabriel —

Login to reply

I was born and raised in a small fishing village in Alaska located in the Prince William Sound, site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. While the media long-ago left the area and Exxon suggests it has been cleaned up, the people trying to make a living in the fishing industry there will tell you that fishing has never been the same. They still find oil under rocks on beaches. I remember thinking several years ago during the severe drought that crippled the Klamath Basin, that, as usual, the fish and the fishermen did not seem to have a lobby or a voice speaking for them. The farmers involved at that time kept sneering that "people were more important than fish."

I have absolutely no faith that the Klamath Settlement will amount to anymore than a "save" for the farmers and long-distance (rich) ranchers in the Klamath Basin. The fishermen and, more importantly, the fish, will ultimately lose in this deal. What the farmers fail to recognize is that if we continue to pollute and use our natural resources irresponsibly it's not just the fish that will die. They are a small part of the larger ecosystem in which we all reside. At some point, we are all going to have to begin to make sacrifices or we will all go the way of the fish.

The farmers in the basin act as though they have the right to continue, as usual, farming crops that require considerable irrigation. Rather than fight to maintain the status quo, why are they not looking into farming crops that don't require as much water? Why are they not looking into farming in a manner that doesn't add polution to the streams and rivers which we all need to survive? Most of the land farmed in the Klamath Basin was given to the farmers by the federal government. Most of the farmers also receive substantial subsidies from the government as well. No-one seems to be speaking for the fishermen in this deal. And, believe me, the fishermen are not receiving subsidies from the federal government. As usual, this deal will simply allow the status quo to continue, until it is too late to save our rivers or our fish. It will then be too late for all of us.
mizerello —

Login to reply

http://www.dubyaspeak.com/search.phtml?nq=fish+can+coexist&stype=all&em=
Chad Balcom —

© 2009, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Search · Inside OPB · Report Reception Problems · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Contact Us · Pressroom · Employment · Community · Audio Streams · RSS Feeds


PBSNPRPRIBBC