By Gillian Flaccus

The Associated Press

PORTLAND — U.S. regulators on Thursday approved a massive plan to demolish four dams and open hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. It would be the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s vote on the lower Klamath River dams is the last major regulatory hurdle and the biggest milestone for a $500 million demolition proposal championed by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years.

The project would return the lower half of California’s second-largest river to a free-flowing state for the first time in more than a century.

Commissioners called the decision “momentous” and “historic” and spoke of the importance of reviving the Klamath River. Native tribes that rely on the river and its salmon have been a driving force behind the plan to remove the dams.

“Some people might ask in this time of great need for zero emissions, ‘Why are we removing the dams?’” FERC Chairman Richard Glick said. “First, we have to understand this doesn’t happen every day … a lot of these projects were licensed a number of years back when there wasn’t as much focus on environmental issues. Some of these projects have a significant impact on the environment and a significant impact on fish.”

In the past, Glick added, the commission did not consider the effect of energy projects on tribes but said that was a “very important element” of Thursday’s decision.

Members of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes and other supporters lit a bonfire and watched the vote on a remote Klamath River sandbar via a satellite uplink to symbolize their hopes for the river’s renewal.

“I understand that some of those tribes are watching this meeting today on the (river) bar and I raise a toast to you,” Commissioner Willie Phillips said.

Before the vote, Yurok vice chairman Frankie Myers said he was excited but nervous the decision would not go through after years of disappointments and multiple crises that almost killed the proposal.

“We’ve been doing this a long time and we’ve been let down so much over the last two decades,” he said. “If there’s still salmon in the water, they have a chance and we have a chance. … They will come down. They have to come down. Our existence depends on it.”

Oregon, California and the Klamath River Renewal Corporation – the entity formed to oversee the demolition and environmental mitigation – must sign off on the license surrender and address any additional requirements before work can begin.

The smallest dam, Copco 2, could come down as early as next summer. The remaining dams will be drained down very slowly starting in early 2024 with the goal of returning the river to its natural state by the end of that year.

Plans to remove the dams have not been without controversy.

Homeowners on Copco Lake, a large reservoir, vigorously oppose the demolition plan and ratepayers in the rural counties around the dams worry about taxpayers shouldering the cost of any overruns or liability problems. Critics also believe dam removal won’t be enough to save the salmon because of changing ocean conditions the fish encounter before the return to their natal river.

“The whole question is: Will this add to the increased production of salmon? It has everything to do with what’s going on in the ocean (and) we think this will turn out to be a futile effort,” said Richard Marshall, head of the Siskiyou County Water Users Association. “Nobody’s ever tried to take care of the problem by taking care of the existing situation without just removing the dams.”

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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 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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