Klamath groups offer dams plan to restore salmon runs

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — A deal calling for removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs has been forged among farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen, conservation groups and government agencies battling over scarce water in the region.

The plan announced Tuesday came after two years of closed-door negotiations that overcame long-standing and bitter differences over how to divide Klamath Basin water between a federal irrigation project and fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.

If the plan goes through, it would bring about the biggest dam removal in U.S. history, opening 300 miles of rivers that have not seen salmon in the past century and restoring 60 miles of reservoir to river, according to American Rivers, a conservation group.

Removal of the dams, perhaps as soon as 2015, depends on agreement from the dams' owner, Portland-based utility PacifiCorp, as well as some $400 million in new spending on salmon restoration, primarily from Congress, for a total of $1 billion over 10 years.

The plan contains no provision for paying the estimated $180 million to remove the dams, leaving that to PacifiCorp.

"What we've come up with is a blueprint for how to solve the Klamath crisis," said Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, which has working for years to restore dwindling salmon catches that were once a keystone of their diet and culture.

PacifiCorp has previously said it would be willing to remove the dams if its ratepayers don't have to pay. But it also has been pursuing a new 30- or 50-year operating license, which would require it to spend about $300 million to build fish ladders. The dams produce enough power for about 70,000 homes.

"It's worth taking a pretty serious look at it," said PacifiCorp spokesman Paul Vogel. "Not being in the room [during negotiations], we don't know whether anyone has seriously represented our customers on our behalf, because our customers have to be protected in this."

Steve Thompson, director of the California-Nevada office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, Calif., said the Bush administration has supported the settlement process, but the plan must be reviewed by federal agencies.

Thompson added that he knew of no dam-removal project in the country that has restored more habitat or would generate more fish, and characterized the $400 million in new spending as a better investment than past disaster relief to farmers and fishermen.

Luther Horsley, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents the 1,000 farms on the irrigation project, said farmers achieved their goals of predictable irrigation deliveries, affordable power for irrigation pumps, and freedom from future lawsuits over endangered species.

Opposition to the agreement is coming from the Hoopa Tribe, based on the Trinity River, which flows into the Klamath below the dams; some farmers who are not part of the Klamath Reclamation Project; and two conservation groups tossed out of the talks last spring, Oregon Wild and WaterWatch.

Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild and Robert Hunter of WaterWatch were skeptical the deal could actually produce the extra water salmon need to thrive, or that Congress could come up with the money during tight budget times.