The Klamath River Renewal Corportation (KRRC), a
non-profit tasked with the removal of four dams from the
Klamath River, is planning to establish a presence in
Klamath Falls as early as January 2018, according to
Mark Bransom, executive director of the group.
Bransom was on hand to answer questions about the
project Tuesday evening during an open house at Oregon
Tech in Klamath Falls, an event that drew interest from
about 80 attendees.
The crowd was a mix of those expressing proposition,
opposition and/or simply an interest in learning more
about the decommissioning and removal of Pacificorps’
Iron Gate Dam Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2, and J.C. Boyle
Dam, according to Bransom.
Also in attendance at the meeting was KRRC board member
and former Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
The removal of the dams is slated for 2020, according to
Bob Gravely, spokesperson for PacifiCorp, the current
owners of the facilities.
The open house, one of three regional KRRC meetings
planned this month, gave attendees the opportunity to
ask questions, make comments, and share perspectives on
the dam-removal process.
“This meeting and the other meetings coming up this week
are really part of the KRRC’s ongoing community and
public outreach efforts, and our hope is that these
formats and these formats and these forums provide an
opportunity for people with an interest in the project
to come out and ask questions, learn more about the KRRC
and learn more about what our mission is, and learn more
about the project and the timeline and what they can
expect to take place and when,” Bransom said.
“We are the dam removal entity that was formed as the
result of the amended KHSA — the Klamath Hydroelectric
Settlement (KHSA) — to take responsibility for taking
possession of the facilities. Then ultimately, with all
of the regulatory approval, removing the dams and the
hydropower facilities. And so that really is our sole
mission.
“We’re very focused exclusively on taking possession of
the dams and removing them and doing restoration efforts
that will be required as part of the mitigation and
potentially some enhanced mitigation work that we might
do.”
Bransom acknowledged that removal of the four dams could
mean “short-term” impacts,” but sees the long-term
benefits worthy of following through on the project.
“We’re working closely with the regulatory agencies,
including fish biologists and others who are helping us
to shape the plans for how we will actually draw the
reservoirs down and then physically remove the
facilities to minimize the impacts to the environment,
in hopes that those impacts can be restricted to a very
narrow window in time,” Bransom said.
“And that we will see as they have in other dam removal
projects, a relatively rapid rebound of the ecosystems
and return of species to the new environments.”
Bransom also addressed concerns of impacts to Klamath
Basin agriculture, saying: “There is nothing that we are
doing with dam removal that will have any direct impact
on agriculture.
“We don’t have any agricultural diversions on any of the
four dams, so the removal of the four lower Klamath dams
will not have any direct impact on irrigators or other
water users,” Bransom added.
“We know that the local Klamath County irrigators were
concerned when the amended KHSA went forward, but the
KBRA did not. The KRRC is very supportive of dialogue
and ongoing discussions for the purposes of trying to
get to a broader, more comprehensive agreement. That’s
not part of our scope or our mission.”
The KRRC collected comment cards at the open house, with
many attendees taking them home with plans to return
them to the non-profit.
“We’ve hosted a series of public meetings where people
have had the opportunity to provide comments but this is
a little bit different format,” Bransom said.
“We anticipate we’ll be back in the Klamath Falls area
for another public meeting, and we’ll be open to taking
public comment. We might do something more like a
presentation to update people on the status of the
various activities, where we are on our timeline, and
how we see things unfolding.”
