Klamath Water Users Association 

The Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) on Tuesday evening in Klamath Falls asserted to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) representatives that irrigators have a continued right to affordable power benefits.

"We believe the farmers of the Klamath Basin have certain legal rights that are reflected in the conditions on the current FERC license, and any entity that acquires a new license will be required to offer low cost power to the farmers, or equivalent consideration," said Lynn Long, a Lower Klamath Lake farmer and chair of the KWUA Power Committee. "The water users have a right to power benefits. Waters used by PacifiCorp are only available to the Klamath Irrigation Project and only so long as they are not required by the irrigation project," he told meeting participants on Tuesday evening.

First of Three FERC Scoping Meetings

FERC officials were in town to host the first of three scoping meetings to solicit public comments on its proposed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIS is being prepared for PacifiCorp’s application for a new license for the continued operation of the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, and will be used by FERC determine whether, and under what conditions, to issue a new hydropower license for the project.

PacifiCorp proposes relicensing of five developments; four existing generating developments along the mainstem of the Upper Klamath River and one generating development on Fall Creek, a tributary to the Klamath River. PacifiCorp also proposes to decommission two currently licensed upstream power houses (East Side and West Side on Link River) and to remove the Keno development (which has no generation facilities) from the license project. De-commissioning of the power houses is being proposed in-lieu of constructing fish screens, estimated to cost $30 million, to protect federally listed aquatic species. Keno Dam would be upstream of the proposed project and, according to PacifiCorp, serves no project service.

Approximately 30 people – including agency, environmental, and agricultural interests – attended Tuesday’s meeting. FERC and PacifiCorp representatives provided brief presentations on FERC’s role in administration of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the proposed scope of cumulative effects analysis and related environmental issues. While the intent of the meeting was to solicit oral comments, only water user and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation representatives provided spoken testimony. Lynn Long and Dan Keppen, KWUA Executive Director, delivered prepared statements at the meeting. Sam Henzel of Klamath Drainage District and Bob Byrne, a Tulelake farmer, also offered up questions to the FERC representatives.

KWUA’s Power Committee, consisting of volunteers from the local agriculture and business community, have over the past four years prepared a strategy to engage in the FERC relicensing process and to advocate for continued affordable power for Upper Klamath Basin agriculture.

After months of soliciting proposals, reviewing qualifications and interviewing potential candidates, KWUA last fall entered into an agreement with a Portland law firm to guide the association’s efforts to address pending electrical power issues. KWUA signed into a formal agreement with Cable Huston Benedict Haagensen and Lloyd, to provide the association with professional legal and other consulting guidance as local irrigators face the expiration in 2006 of a contract, which presently provides for power pricing in the Klamath Project.

The Klamath Project’s power contract dates to 1917, when PacifiCorp's predecessor – Copco – negotiated a deal with the U.S. government to build Link River Dam. The power company received the run of the river and storage benefits for hydropower, while the government and water users received affordable electricity for the Klamath Project. PacifiCorp and the federal government negotiated the current 50-year deal in 1956. KWUA was formed in 1953 in part to specifically address the power contract that was in place at that time.

The Reclamation Act was enacted in 1902 to encourage irrigation and homesteading in arid western states. It was anticipated that the irrigation would require two interrelated resources: water and power. The Bureau of Reclamation asserted legal claim to all residual or inchoate water rights within the Project boundary. Reclamation also has authority to develop hydroelectric power projects. Within the Klamath Irrigation Project, Reclamation gave permission to Copco to begin developing key components of the Klamath Hydroelectric Project pursuant to terms of the 1917 agreement. In 1951 Copco sought a federal license for two new hydroelectric facilities—now known as JC Boyle. Reclamation and local interests vigorously opposed the license, as it would impede the federal agency from ever developing its own power resources.

FERC interpreted Reclamation’s objection as an exercise of Reclamation’s mandatory conditioning authority the Federal Power Act (FPA). FERC ultimately issued the license solely upon the condition that the 1917 agreement be renewed for the term of the license. Under the FPA, federal agencies can require conditions for projects located on or within federal "reservation" lands. In general, the agency can require license conditions to ensure that the hydroelectric project is consistent with the basic purpose of the federal reservation.

Water users on Tuesday asserted that Reclamation is entitled to require license conditions to ensure that the hydro Project license is not inconsistent with the irrigation purposes of the Klamath Irrigation Project. Lynn Long voiced water users objections to the term "subsidized rate", a favorite characterization of Klamath Project critics.

"The current contract is the product of negotiation among sophisticated parties that resulted in an acceptable agreement for all concerned," said Long. "We believe that the current rate schedule is a reasonable consideration of the relationship between the Klamath Hydroelectric Project and the federal Klamath Irrigation Project."

Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) representatives testified at last Tuesday’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) meeting and emphasized that decisions on Klamath Hydroelectric Project relicensing need to reflect the actual state of the river system. A KWUA statement submitted to FERC summarized recent water quality modeling developed by PacifiCorp that provides a glimpse into Klamath River dynamics.

"These initial findings may force policy makers to take a whole new look into how the Klamath River system can be managed," said KWUA Executive Director Dan Keppen on Tuesday.

PacifiCorp has developed flow and water quality models for the Klamath River, specifically from Link Dam to Turwar, California. The models developed by PacifiCorp can analyze water quality from Link Dam to Iron Gate Dam and below, and show how the PacifiCorp facilities contribute to or control water quality conditions in and downstream of the dams. According to the modeling, the PacifiCorp dams in the Middle Klamath are serving important functions. Some of those functions are attributable simply to the fact that they create a series of lakes. Turbidity, for example, diminishes as water moves through the system; turbidity can be a surrogate for particulate matter, including dead algae and other nutrients.

Particulate organic matter that originates, or is a result of nutrients released from Upper Klamath Lake (UKL), agricultural return flows, and municipal and industrial inputs in the Klamath Falls area is to a large extent trapped by system reservoirs, reducing the overall nutrient load to the reaches below Iron Gate Dam. Comparatively, Iron Gate and Copco reservoirs have much smaller surface areas and, although productive, do not yield the same loading potential as Upper Klamath Lake. These reservoirs thus have a considerably smaller impact on releases to the Klamath River than UKL.

PacifiCorp’s findings suggest that, under current conditions - even if all the dams were removed below Link Dam - the resulting river reaches could not assimilate or retain anywhere near what the dams now assimilate or retain. Without the dams, there is potential for water with substantially impaired water quality to flow downstream to the middle Klamath River reaches. Without the current impoundments in place, water would reach the area of Iron Gate Dam in two to three days versus six to eight weeks. The dams are beneficial for water quality, because UKL water quality is impaired, and the reservoirs trap appreciable amounts of matter, thereby reducing the load to downstream reaches.

Participants in recent PacifiCorp modeling presentations have noted that the Klamath River behaves as if it is "upside down", with characteristics that differ from other river systems.

"It is vitally important for policy makers and participants in the FERC relicensing process to understand this," said Keppen. "Recent comments in the media made by river restoration and free flow theorists tout the advantages of dam removal on the Klamath River, and predict surging runs of salmon and pristine water quality conditions once those structures are modified. Based on available information, we believe the burden is on the theorists to prove that improved water quality and fish habitat will result from modifying the mainstem Klamath River dams."

Amidst growing concerns over a recent decision to reduce downstream releases from Iron Gate Dam, the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) this week sent a letter to the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) that raises questions about state hatchery management at Iron Gate. The hatchery is scheduled to release fingerling chinook salmon into the mainstem Klamath River below the hatchery. The purpose of the KWUA letter was to secure additional information on this matter, and more importantly, to urge CDFG to collaborate with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to ensure that hatchery and Klamath Project operations are coordinated and enhanced to the maximal possible extent.

It appears that the effect of hatchery fish on populations of wild salmonids in the Klamath basin is not well understood. However, based on the final 2003 report prepared by the National Research Council Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin, hatchery impacts to threatened coho salmon may be negative. For example, the release of millions of juvenile chinook salmon every spring floods the river with fish that are larger than the wild fish. The hatchery fish may displace or stress wild coho salmon.

Two weeks after Reclamation was required to change the water year type to "dry" on the Klamath River because of plummeting runoff forecasts, it appears that CDFG is still on track to release 6 million juvenile chinook into the river at Iron Gate. After hearing reports of diseased fish in the Klamath River this spring, KWUA questioned CDFG if it, or other agencies, had planned on performing a disease assessment, including a disease history for the hatchery fish, prior to their release.

KWUA’s fisheries scientist David Vogel played an important role in coordinating hatchery releases from Coleman Fish Hatchery with water releases from Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River. This required improved cooperation between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the Central Valley. Mr. Vogel believes there is merit to pulse flows associated with release of juveniles, but that the related flow magnitude and duration is a matter that must be very carefully developed. On the Sacramento River, Reclamation’s Shasta Dam water releases were coordinated with fish releases from Coleman hatchery to allow larger fish to move downstream earlier in the year. KWUA’s letter recommended that Reclamation and CDFG investigate developing a similar relationship between Iron Gate hatchery operations and Klamath Project flow operations.

The KWUA letter notes that some downstream interests and environmentalists are already claiming that another fish die-off on the river is imminent. The letter then explains that a certain mortality rate is expected any time millions of small fish are released into a river system. For example, the Eureka Times-Standard recently reported that 200,000 Klamath River fingerlings died in the spring of 2001. The letter requests from CDFG data explaining the observed and/or estimated mortality associated with spring releases of Iron Gate Hatchery fingerlings over the past decade, as well as the expected mortality for this year. It also requests clarification on whether or not the Times-Standard estimate is correct.

The letter closes with information relating to hatchery practices in the fall of 2002, when salmon returns to Iron Gate Hatchery were the third highest on record, despite the deaths of 33,000 fish on the lower river that fall. In late December 2002, CDFG officials notified KWUA that 24,641 chinook adults, 950 adult coho and 114 adult steelhead returned to the hatchery. This was the third highest total since the hatchery began monitoring returns in 1961. The KWUA letter poses two final questions on this issue:

• Is it true that Iron Gate Hatchery requires 8,000 returning fish to meet production goals?

• If this is correct, it would appear that in 2002, returning adult chinook salmon exceeded the number required to replenish the brood stock by over 16,000 fish. What exactly happened to the surplus returning adult chinook that exceeded the amount required to replenish the hatchery stock?

The letter encourages CDFG to work closely with Reclamation to enhance the Klamath River objectives of both agencies, wherever possible.

Friday, May 21, 2004 – Trinity River Tour. Hosted by the Association of California Water Agencies, the tour will start and finish in Redding. Contact John Chandler at (916)-441-4545 for further information.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004 – KWUA Power Committee Meeting. 7:00 p.m. KWUA Office, 2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3, Klamath Falls.

Thursday, May 27, 2004 – Hatfield Upper Klamath Basin Working Group Restoration Committee. 3:00 p.m. Klamath County Courthouse Annex. Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
(541)-883-6100 FAX (541)-883-8893  kwua@cvcwireless.net

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