By MARTHA BELLISLE
Associated Press

COULEE DAM, Wash. (AP) — Trump administration workforce cuts at federal agencies overseeing U.S. dams are threatening their ability to provide reliable electricity, supply farmers with water and protect communities from floods, employees and industry experts warn.

The Bureau of Reclamation provides water and hydropower to the public in 17 western states. Nearly 400 agency workers have been cut through the Trump reduction plan, an administration official said.

“Reductions-in-force” memos have also been sent to current workers, and more layoffs are expected. The cuts included workers at the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest hydropower generator in North America, according to two fired staffers interviewed by The Associated Press.

“Without these dam operators, engineers, hydrologists, geologists, researchers, emergency managers and other experts, there is a serious potential for heightened risk to public safety and economic or environmental damage,” Lori Spragens, executive director of the Kentucky-based Association of Dam Safety Officials, told the AP.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said federal workforce reductions will ensure disaster responses are not bogged down by bureaucracy and bloat.

“A more efficient workforce means more timely access to resources for all Americans,” she said by email.

But a bureau hydrologist said they need people on the job to ensure the dams are working properly.

“These are complex systems,” said the worker in the Midwest, who is still employed but spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of possible retaliation.

Workers keep dams safe by monitoring data, identifying weaknesses and doing site exams to check for cracks and seepage.

“As we scramble to get these screenings, as we lose institutional knowledge from people leaving or early retirement, we limit our ability to ensure public safety,” the worker added. “Having people available to respond to operational emergencies is critical. Cuts in staff threaten our ability to do this effectively.”

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the administration to rehire fired probationary workers, but a Trump spokesperson said they would fight back, leaving unclear whether any would return.

The heads of 14 California water and power agencies sent a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Interior last month warning that eliminating workers with “specialized knowledge” in operating and maintaining aging infrastructure “could negatively impact our water delivery system and threaten public health and safety.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also operates dams nationwide. Matt Rabe, a spokesman, declined to say how many workers left through early buyouts, but said the agency hasn’t been told to reduce its workforce.

But Neil Maunu, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, said it learned more than 150 Army Corps workers in Portland, Oregon, were told they would be terminated and they expect to lose about 600 more in the Pacific Northwest.

The firings include “district chiefs down to operators on vessels” and people critical to safe river navigation, he said.

Their last day is not known. The Corps was told to provide a plan to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management by March 14, Maunu said.

Several other federal agencies that help ensure dams run safely also have faced layoffs and closures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is laying off 10% of its workforce and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Dam Safety Review Board was disbanded in January.

The cuts come at a time when the nation’s dams need expert attention.

An AP review of Army Corps data last year showed at least 4,000 dams are in poor or unsatisfactory condition and could kill people or harm the environment if they failed.

They require inspections, maintenance and emergency repairs to avoid catastrophes, the AP found.

Heavy rain damaged the spillway at California’s Oroville Dam in 2017, forcing nearly 190,000 residents to evacuate, and Michigan’s Edenville Dam breached in storms in 2020, the AP found.

Stephanie Duclos, a Bureau of Reclamation probationary worker fired at the Grand Coulee Dam, said she was among a dozen workers initially terminated. The dam across the Columbia River in central Washington state generates electricity for millions of homes and supplies water to a 27-mile-long reservoir that irrigates the Columbia Basin Project.

“This is a big infrastructure,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of people to run it.”

Some fired employees had worked there for decades but were in a probation status due to a position switch. Duclos was an assistant for program managers who organized training and was a liaison with human resources. The only person doing that job, she fears how others will cover the work.

“You’re going to get employee burnout” in the workers left behind, she said.

Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who pushed a bipartisan effort to ensure the National Dam Safety Program was authorized through 2028, said, “the safety and efficacy of our dams is a national security priority.

“Americans deserve better, and I will work to make sure this administration is held accountable for their reckless actions,” Padilla said.

Associated Press White House reporter Chris Megerian also contributed to this report.

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By JEFF McMURRAY
Associated Press

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced nearly $200 million in federal infrastructure grants to upgrade tunnels that carry streams beneath roads but can be deadly to fish that get stuck trying to pass through.

Many of these narrow passages known as culverts, often made from metal or concrete, were built in the 1950s and are blamed in part for declining populations of salmon and other fish that live in the ocean but return to freshwater streams to spawn.

By extension, fisheries — including tribal-run operations in the Pacific Northwest — have experienced losses they blame in part on such barriers as culverts and dams.

“We inherited a lot of structures that were built in a way that just did not properly contemplate the effect they were having on fish,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with The Associated Press. “You don’t have to be a fish enthusiast or ecologist to care about this. It’s very important for the livelihoods, economies and way of life in many parts of the country.”

Some of the 169 projects that make up the first batch in a $1 billion initiative being rolled out over five years under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would upgrade the culverts or replace them with bridges to allow water — and fish — to flow more freely.

The most-expensive project announced Wednesday is $25 million for Alaska to replace a dozen culvert sites on a major highway connecting Fairbanks and Anchorage with three new bridges and other fish-friendly structures. State officials say the funding will help protect five species of Pacific salmon that are considered vital to the region’s economy.

Washington state, which has been working for years under a court order to improve fish crossings under state roads, is receiving $58 million in federal grant money — the most for any state in the first round of the culvert projects.

Tribal governments there won an injunction in 2013 prohibiting the construction of new culverts deemed to harm fish habitats and requiring state officials to accelerate the removal of existing ones. The U.S. Supreme Court later deadlocked on the case, 4-4, allowing the lower court order to stand.

As of June, Washington had removed 114 culvert barriers and helped clear 502 miles of blocked salmon and steelhead habitat, according to the state’s Department of Transportation.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said the federal money will only add to that effort.

“Washingtonians are going to see more salmon coming back to rivers all across the Evergreen state,” Cantwell said in a news release.

While the most funding went to Washington and Alaska, Maine was next with $35 million. Four other East Coast states also received grants — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia and North Carolina — but for much smaller amounts.

Other Western states to receive money are California, Oregon and Idaho.

Jessica Helsley, director of government affairs for the Wild Salmon Center, which advocates for fish crossings including culvert removal, said the effort will be much stronger with the federal government as a committed partner.

“It creates a new unique dialogue that otherwise might have been a little slower to develop,” Helsley said. “It used to be you’d go talk to an infrastructure department and say, ‘I’m here to talk fish,’ and you’d get ignored. Well, now, thanks to Congress, you can say, ‘I’m here to talk fish, and I have money to work with.'”

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By Gillian Flaccus

The Associated Press

PORTLAND — Federal regulators have issued a final environmental impact statement that supports the demolition of four massive dams on the Klamath River to save imperiled migratory salmon.

The staff’s recommendation, which largely echoes an earlier draft opinion, tees up a vote on the roughly $500 million project by the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission later this year.

The removal of the four hydroelectric dams on the lower Klamath River – one in southern Oregon and three in California – would be the largest dam demolition project in U.S. history.

The aging dams near the Oregon-California border were built before current environmental regulations and essentially cut the 253-mile-long river in half for migrating salmon. Those fish have been hit hard by warming waters and low river flows caused by severe drought and competition for water with agricultural interests.

The project on California’s second-largest river would be at the vanguard of a push to demolish dams in the U.S. as the structures age and become less economically viable and as concerns grow about their environmental impact, particularly on fish.

Northern California tribes have been fighting for years to remove the dams. They applauded the latest news.

“We can see the light at the end of the dam removal tunnel,” Karuk Chairman Russell ‘Buster’ Attebery stated. “I am so proud of everyone in our river communities that have worked so hard for the past 20 years to realize our vision of river restoration.”

Coho salmon from the river are listed as threatened under federal and California law, and their population has fallen by anywhere from 52 percent to 95 percent. Spring chinook salmon, once the Klamath Basin‘s largest run, have dwindled by 98 percent.

Fall chinook, the last to persist in any significant numbers, have been so meager in the past few years that the Yurok Tribe canceled fishing last year for the first time in memory. In 2017, they bought fish at a grocery store for their annual salmon festival.

In recent years, as many as 90 percent of juvenile salmon sampled tested positive for a disease that flourishes when river flows are low.

If the dams were to remain, power company PacifiCorp would likely have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit the structures to comply with today’s environmental laws. Also, the utility has said the electricity generated by the dams no longer makes up a significant part of its power portfolio.

The original demolition proposal foundered after regulators initially balked at allowing PacifiCorp to completely exit the project.

A historic deal reached in 2020 made Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with a nonprofit entity called the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, which will oversee the project. That deal also added $45 million to the project’s $450 million budget after concerns that the available funds weren’t enough to cover any overruns.

Oregon, California, and PacifiCorp, which operates the hydroelectric dams and is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, each provided one-third of the additional funds.

Some critics have said Oregon and California governors were irresponsible to assume financial responsibility for cost overruns and object that part of the project is financed by a voter-approved California water bond.

Some local and state officials worry about flood control and residents who live around a large reservoir created by one of the dams have unsuccessfully sued to stop the project.

The dams that would be demolished are the Iron Gate, Copco 1 and Copco 2 in California and the J.C. Boyle in Oregon.

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The Tualatin River Watershed Council has received from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) a $270,000 grant that will advance a multiyear effort to remove an old dam that has blocked fish passage since at least the 1930s.

The dam, commonly known as the Balm Grove Dam, sits in Gales Creek, a tributary of the Tualatin River, near Forest Grove. Removal is expected to open more than 87 miles of historic, “in-stream” habitat for coastal cutthroat trout, 28 miles for winter steelhead, and several miles for coho salmon, Pacific lamprey, mountain whitefish, and mountain and largescale sucker fish.

“Gales Creek hosts one of the Tualatin Valley’s most important areas for winter steelhead.” stated Scott McEwan, executive director of the Tualatin River Watershed Council. “Removing this dam is going to open up miles and miles of historic habitat. This project has been a high priority for our watershed council for a very long time, and we’re grateful to have the support of OWEB and so many local partners.”

The Balm Grove Dam was built in the early 20th century to create a recreational area with a swimming hole, a tavern and a dance hall. The area has not been used in several decades and the facilities are in disrepair.

Clean Water Services in 2016 purchased the 12-acre property that includes the dam and has since worked with the watershed council and other local partners to restore the area for water quality, fish and wildlife.

Work to remove the dam will begin this summer and is expected to finish in 2023. The total cost is estimated at $750,000.

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By MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Lawmakers in Congress have introduced a bill that would pump tens of billions of dollars into improving and repairing U.S. dams.

The Twenty-First Century Dams Act, introduced by Democratic U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, proposes to spend nearly $26 billion to make the repairs that would enhance safety and increase the power generation capacity of the country’s 90,000 dams. It also calls for removing any dams that have outlived their usefulness.

“We have the opportunity to build stronger, more resilient water infrastructure and hydropower systems in the United States, and the Twenty-First Century Dams Act advances an innovative plan to rehabilitate, retrofit, or remove U.S. dams to bolster clean energy production while taking steps to conserve our waterways for generations to come,” Kuster said in a statement.

The bill, which U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is expected to introduce in the Senate, comes amid concerns that thousands of dams are at increasing risk of failure, especially as climate change is leading to more frequent and intense storms. State and local officials have long acknowledged the problems but complain they lack the funds to properly inspect, repair and maintain their dams.

In 2019, The Associated Press identified at least 1,688 high-hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition as of the prior year in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The AP analysis noted that the actual number is almost certainly higher.

The AP’s investigation looked at high-hazard dams — which could kill people if they were to fail — that were found by inspectors to be in the worst condition. Georgia led the way with 198 high-hazard dams in unsatisfactory or poor condition, followed by North Carolina with 168 and Pennsylvania with 145.

Inspection reports cited a variety of problems: leaks that can indicate a dam is failing internally; unrepaired erosion from past instances of overtopping; holes from burrowing animals; tree growth that can destabilize earthen dams; and spillways too small to handle a large flood.

U.S. dams are on average more than a half-century old, but there is no national standard for inspecting them. That’s led to a patchwork of state regulations in which some high-hazard dams are inspected annually while others wait up to five years.

“Deficient and unregulated dams pose a public-safety threat to thousands of U.S. citizens, their property, and the environment,” Lori Spragens, executive director of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, said in a statement. “Recent dam failures and incidents show the urgent need for stronger state and federal dam safety programs and policies to ensure the safety of communities living near dams.”

In May 2020, the hydroelectric Edenville Dam in Michigan failed during heavy rains, unleashing a torrent of water on the Tittabawassee River, which then overwhelmed Sanford Dam downstream. The flooding caused more than $250 million in damage, drained lakes that had been formed by the dams and forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.

Kuster’s bill, which has the support of the hydropower industry and environmental groups, would offer a 30 percent tax credit for qualifying dams for safety, environmental improvements, grid flexibility, and dam removals.

“Hydropower’s existing fleet plays a significant role in America’s clean energy infrastructure, and will play a critical role in achieving President Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon electricity grid,” Malcolm Woolf, the CEO and president of the National Hydropower Association, said in a statement. “With the right tools, we can optimize generation efficiency and output, make environmental enhancements, and bolster dam safety.”

It also would provide funding that aims to reconnect about 10,000 miles of rivers through the removal of 1,000 dams.

“Healthy, free-flowing rivers are essential to our future as we face the challenges of climate change. Investing in dam removal and river restoration will revitalize ecosystem health, improve public safety and strengthen communities,” Tom Kiernan, the president of American Rivers, said in a statement.

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By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A proposal to bring down four hydroelectric dams near the California-Oregon border cleared a major regulatory hurdle Thursday, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition project in U.S. history to save imperiled migratory salmon.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission action comes after the demolition proposal almost fell apart last summer, but then a new agreement and additional funding revived it. Thursday’s ruling will allow the utility that runs the dams, PacifiCorp, to transfer its hydroelectric license jointly to the nonprofit Klamath River Renewal Corp., Oregon and California.

Regulators still must approve the actual surrender of the license. Dam removal could start in 2023.

Tribes on the lower Klamath River that have watched salmon struggle applauded the decision. Salmon are at the heart of the culture, beliefs and diet of a half-dozen regional tribes, including the Yurok and Karuk — both parties to the agreement — and they have suffered deeply from that loss.

This week, California accepted a petition to add Klamath-Trinity River spring chinook salmon to the state’s endangered species list.

The aging dams were built before current environmental regulations and essentially cut the 253-mile-long river in half for migrating salmon, whose numbers have been plummeting.

Coho salmon from the river are listed as threatened under federal and California law, and their population has fallen anywhere from 52 percent to 95 percent. Spring chinook salmon, once the Klamath Basin‘s largest run, has dwindled by 98 percent.

Fall chinook, the last to persist in any significant numbers, have been so meager in the past few years that the Yurok Tribe canceled fishing for the first time in memory. In 2017, they bought fish at a grocery store for their annual salmon festival.

Another tribe, the Karuk Tribe, said in a statement that the regulators’ decision “reflects the hard work of our partnership with PacifiCorp, California, Oregon, and the Yurok Tribe. After this year’s massive fish kill, we need dam removal more than ever.”

The dams don’t store agricultural water, aren’t used for flood control and aren’t part of the 200,000-acre Klamath Project, an irrigation project further north that straddles the Oregon-California border.

Removing the structures would affect homeowners who live around man-made lakes created by the dams.

If the dams remained, PacifiCorp would likely have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit the structures to comply with today’s environmental laws. As it is, the utility has said the electricity generated by the dams no longer makes up a significant part of its power portfolio.

The demolition proposal foundered last summer after regulators initially balked at allowing PacifiCorp to completely exit the project.

A new plan unveiled in November appears to address regulators’ concerns that the nonprofit entity overseeing the demolition would struggle if there were any cost overruns or liability issues.

The new plan makes Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with the Klamath River Renewal Corporation and adds $45 million to the project’s $450 million budget. The states and PacifiCorp, which is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, will each provide one-third of the additional funds.

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By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that a large earthquake — which is expected to occur again in the Pacific Northwest sooner or later — could cause the spillway gates of a dam in Oregon to buckle, resulting “in a potentially catastrophic flood.”

The Corps announced late Monday it will try to minimize the danger by reducing the maximum height of the lake by five feet starting in April. Hundreds of thousands of people, including those in the state capital, live downstream from the Detroit Dam, whose construction in the 1950s created the narrow, nine-mile long Detroit Lake.

The move comes as Oregon and the wider Pacific Northwest are coming to grips with “the big one” that experts say is coming. Earthquakes in the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends from the ocean off Northern California to Canada’s Vancouver Island, have an average magnitude of around 9, making them among the world’s biggest.

A quake in that zone has a 37 percent probability of happening off Oregon’s coast in the next 50 years, according to Chris Goldfinger, an Oregon State University professor and earthquake geologist.

Just last week, an earthquake early warning system was launched in Oregon. Operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, the state joined California in the system that sends alerts to smart phones. Washington state is expected to join the ShakeAlert system, which operates on an array of seismic sensors, in May.

“When a Cascadia event happens, the critical seconds of notice ShakeAlert warnings provide will save lives and reduce damage to important lifeline systems,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said the day it launched, on Thursday.

Lawmakers are also trying to prepare the state for a major earthquake.

In the Oregon Legislature, House Bill 3083 mandates that contracts for public works must adhere to seismic safety standards and seismic rehabilitation standards in constructing or renovating public buildings or critical infrastructure in earthquake-prone areas. A House committee has a work session scheduled for the bill on April 1.

Lindsay Baker, an assistant director of the Oregon Department of Transportation, raised concerns about the bill, saying “there is simply not sufficient funding to fully armor the entire transportation system in a reasonable timeframe.”

But Baker later told the House Committee on General Government she was relieved to hear that the state’s transportation system is not the focus of a new standard for seismic resiliency.

In 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a seismic hazard analysis for Detroit Dam, and found the risk to be higher than Corps officials previously thought.

“Structural analysis has shown a possibility of the spillway gates buckling under the force of a full reservoir during a large earthquake,” the Corps said in its statement. “Risk is high enough to warrant immediate actions.”

A breach would send a surge of water shooting down the Santiam Canyon, which was devastated by a wildfire last summer, and onto where it opens up on the eastern edge of the Willamette Valley.

“Because Detroit Dam is located upstream of many communities including the state capital of Salem, Oregon, there is potential for devastating flooding to affect large portions of the narrow North Santiam River canyon and urban areas,” the Corps said in its draft environmental assessment.

Lowering the maximum level is a temporary solution to mitigate the risks and will have little impact, the Corps said. The lake is used for recreation, and most of the boat ramps would be unusable for up to a month.

The Corps said it continues to evaluate the seismic performance of the spillway and other components of the dam to determine if long-term modifications or changes to operations will be necessary. That includes the potential for major reconstruction to address seismic risk.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An environmental group in Oregon has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not providing information about the structural integrity of Willamette River dams south of Portland.

The lawsuit, filed by Willamette Riverkeeper, stems from the Corps releasing a plan in January calling for restrictions on water levels behind Hills Creek and Lookout Point dams near Oakridge, Springfield and Eugene, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

The plan said higher water levels could increase the risk of dam failure and refers to reports on the dams.

Willamette Riverkeeper filed a public records request in March for the reports and other safety and risk assessments, but the group has yet to receive the requested information or a timeline on when it would be delivered.

“I think it begged the question for us at the very least to say, ‘What does the Corps know about the structural integrity of these 13 large dams in the Willamette River system?'” Willamette Riverkeeper Executive Director Travis Williams said. “There’s a lot that we should be able to know about all those dams, most of which have significant reservoirs behind them.”

Williams argued that if the dams need repairs, the work could open the door to adding fish passage for salmon and other environmental and conservation efforts.

The group also sued the Corps over what it calls a failure to protect threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead in its management of the dams. The dams were built for flood control, irrigation and hydropower, and none have fish ladders to help the fish maneuver around them.

“There could be opportunities if we’re looking 10, 15 years down the road to both improve the condition of a project if it has issues and make it have less of an impact on our river system,” Williams said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

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By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years.

If approved, the deal would revive plans to remove four massive hydroelectric dams on the lower Klamath River, creating the foundation for the most ambitious salmon restoration effort in history.

The project on California’s second-largest river would be at the vanguard of a trend toward dam demolitions in the U.S. as the structures age and become less economically viable amid growing environmental concerns about the health of native fish.

Previous efforts to address problems in the Klamath Basin have fallen apart amid years of legal sparring that generated distrust among tribes, fishing groups, farmers and environmentalists, and the new agreement could face more legal challenges. Some state and federal lawmakers criticized it as a financially irresponsible overreach by leaders in Oregon and California.

“This dam removal is more than just a concrete project coming down. It’s a new day and a new era,” Yurok Tribe chairman Joseph James said. “To me, this is who we are, to have a free-flowing river just as those who have come before us. … Our way of life will thrive with these dams being out.”

A half-dozen tribes across Oregon and California, fishing groups and environmentalists had hoped to see demolition work begin as soon as 2022. But those plans stalled in July, when U.S. regulators questioned whether the nonprofit entity formed to oversee the project could adequately respond to any cost overruns or accidents.

The new plan makes Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with the nonprofit entity, called the Klamath River Renewal Corp., and adds $45 million to the project’s $450 million budget to ease those concerns. Oregon, California and the utility PacifiCorp, which operates the hydroelectric dams and is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, will each provide one-third of the additional funds.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must approve the deal. If accepted, it would allow PacifiCorp and Berkshire Hathaway to walk away from aging dams that are more of an albatross than a profit-generator, while addressing regulators’ concerns. Oregon, California and the nonprofit would jointly take over the hydroelectric license from PacifiCorp while the nonprofit will oversee the work.

Buffett said the reworked deal solves a “very complex challenge.”

“I recognize the importance of Klamath dam removal and river restoration for tribal people in the Klamath Basin,” Buffett said in a statement. “We appreciate and respect our tribal partners for their collaboration in forging an agreement that delivers an exceptional outcome for the river, as well as future generations.”

Removed would be the four southernmost dams in a string of six constructed in southern Oregon and far Northern California beginning in 1918.

They were built solely for power generation. They are not used for irrigation and not managed for flood control. The lowest dam on the river, the Iron Gate, has no “fish ladder,” or concrete chutes that fish can pass through.

That’s blocked hundreds of miles of potential fish habitat and spawning grounds, and fish populations have dropped precipitously in recent years. Salmon are at the heart of the culture, beliefs and diet of a half-dozen regional tribes, including the Yurok and Karuk — both parties to the agreement — and they have suffered deeply from that loss.

Coho salmon from the Klamath River are listed as threatened under federal and California law, and their population in the river has fallen anywhere from 52 percent to 95 percent. Spring chinook salmon, once the Klamath Basin’s largest run, has dwindled by 98%.

Fall chinook, the last to persist in any significant numbers, have been so meager in the past few years that the Yurok canceled fishing for the first time in the tribe’s memory. In 2017, they bought fish at a grocery store for their annual salmon festival.

“It is bleak, but I want to have hope that with dam removal and with all the prayers that we’ve been sending up all these years, salmon could come back. If we just give them a chance, they will,” said Chook-Chook Hillman, a Karuk tribal member fighting for dam removal. “If you provide a good place for salmon, they’ll always come home.”

PacifiCorp has been operating the dams under an extension of its expired hydroelectric license for years. The license was originally granted before modern environmental laws and renewing it would mean costly renovations to install fish ladders. The utility has said energy generated by the dams no longer makes up a significant part of its portfolio.

In the original deal, PacifiCorp was to transfer its license and contribute $200 million to bow out of the removal project and avoid further costs and liability. An additional $250 million comes from a voter-approved California water bond.

U.S. regulators, however, agreed only on the condition that PacifiCorp remain a co-licensee along with the Klamath River Renewal Corporation — a nonstarter for the utility.

Residents have been caught in the middle. As tribes watched salmon dwindle, some homeowners around a huge reservoir created by one of the dams have sued to stop the demolition.

They say their waterfront property values have already fallen by half because of news coverage associated with demolition and they worry about losing a water source for fighting wildfires in an increasingly fire-prone landscape. Many also oppose the use of ratepayer funds for the project.

U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a California Republican, said the agreement puts taxpayers in the two states on the hook. Some state lawmakers in Oregon said Gov. Kate Brown violated her constitutional authority by authorizing the deal without legislative or voter approval.

Further upstream, farmers who rely on two other dams are watching carefully. The removal of the lower four dams won’t affect them directly, but they worry it could set a precedent for dam removal on the Klamath.

More than 1,720 dams have been dismantled around the U.S. since 2012, according to American Rivers, and 26 states undertook dam removal projects in 2019 alone. The Klamath River project would be the largest such project by far if it proceeds.

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By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Environmental groups are vowing to continue their fight to remove four dams on the Snake River in Washington state they say are killing salmon that are a key food source for endangered killer whales.

But instead of working with federal agencies, conservationists intend to seek removal of the dams through the political or legal systems.

Agencies of the U.S. government announced in late July that the four huge dams will not be removed to help salmon migrate to the ocean. That decision was finalized Tuesday in a so-called Record of Decision.

The decision thwarts the desires of environmental groups that fought for two decades to breach the dams.

“This is definitely not the end,” said Robb Krehbiel of Defenders of Wildlife. “I don’t see how this doesn’t end up in court.”

But he is also encouraged by signs that governors of Northwest states, particularly Democrats in Oregon and Washington, are looking for a negotiated solution.

“To say we need a new approach, that we need leadership from our elected representatives, and that we need to find a solution that works for all of us is to state the obvious,” said Todd True, an attorney for Earthjustice.

The ROD was issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration, and sought to balance the needs of salmon and other interests.

The plan calls for spilling more water over the dams at strategic times to help endangered salmon migrate faster to and from the ocean, a tactic that has already been in use.

Dam critics have panned the Trump administration plan as inadequate to save salmon, an iconic Northwest species. They contend the dams must go if salmon are to survive.

“To us, the lower Snake River is a living being,” said Shannon K. Wheeler, chair of Idaho’s Nez Perce Tribe. “We are compelled to speak the truth on behalf of this life force and the impacts these concrete barriers on the lower Snake have on salmon, steelhead, and lamprey.”

The tribe will go to court, to Congress and to state capitols to find a way to restore the river, Wheeler said.

Scientists warn southern resident orcas are starving to death because of a dearth of chinook salmon that are their primary food source. The Pacific Northwest population of orcas — also called killer whales — was placed on the endangered species list in 2005.

The dams have many defenders, including Republican politicians from the region, barge operators and other river users, farmers and business leaders.

Republican members of Congress from the Northwest hailed the recent federal decision.

“Federal water infrastructure makes our way of life possible throughout the West,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., as part of a joint statement that included similar sentiments from Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, made up of river users, also defended the dams.

“Salmon, orcas and other wildlife are threatened by climate change,” said Executive Director Kristin Meira. “The clean power and efficient commerce provided by the system’s hydroelectric dams and navigation locks are key to our region’s ability to reduce our carbon footprint.”

The four hydroelectric dams were built from the 1960s to the 1970s between Pasco and Pomeroy, Washington. Since then, salmon populations have plunged.

The dams have fish ladders that allow some salmon and other species to migrate to the ocean and then back to spawning grounds. But the vast majority of the fish die during the journey, despite $17 billion spent so far on efforts to save them.

The 100-foot-tall dams generate electricity, provide irrigation and flood control, and allow barges to operate all the way to Lewiston, Idaho, 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

The federal agencies concluded that removing the four dams would destabilize the power grid, increase overall greenhouse emissions and more than double the risk of regional power outages.

The four dams are part of a vast and complex hydroelectric power system operated by the federal government in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The 14 federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers together produce 40 percent of the region’s power — enough electricity for nearly 5 million homes.

But the dams have proven disastrous for salmon that hatch in freshwater streams, then make their way hundreds of miles to the ocean, where they spend years before finding their way back to mate, lay eggs and die.

The dams cut off more than half of salmon spawning and rearing habitat, and many wild salmon runs in the region have 2 percent or less of their historic populations, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

On the way to the ocean, juvenile salmon can get chewed up in the dams’ turbines.

In all, three federal judges have thrown out five plans for the system over the decades after finding they didn’t do enough to protect salmon.

The most recent case occurred in 2016, when a federal judge in Portland ordered dam managers to consider removing or altering the four dams. That order led to Tuesday’s record of decision.

“The differences between the plan adopted by these agencies today and the plan the court rejected in 2016 are hard to discern,” True said Tuesday. “And the plan the court rejected in 2016 was not materially different from plans the court had rejected in 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2011.”

The Save Our Wild Salmon coalition contended federal agencies cannot deliver a comprehensive solution. Rather, the effort must be led by stakeholders, tribes, politicians and citizens, the coalition said.

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