Decommissioning Dams on the Klamath
River to Restore Resilience and Long-term River,
Community Health
By: John Bezdek, Senior Advisor to
the Deputy Secretary, U.S.Department of the Interior
10/18/16, E
News Park Forest
In the United States, dams can provide numerous
benefits, including water supply, hydropower, and
flood protection. Dams are also an important part of
building long-term resiliency to help protect our
communities and economy from the impacts of drought.
However, there are tens of thousands of dams across
the United States that no longer serve their
intended purpose and have become a burden to local
communities, a threat to public health and safety,
are no longer economically viable, and an obstacle
to healthy ecosystems. That is why the Obama
Administration believes in a balanced approach in
evaluating dams where new opportunities for water
storage that make economic and environmental sense
are evaluated while we also examine the potential
removal of existing dams on a case-by-case basis.
Important factors to consider when evaluating
potential dam removal are whether: there are
societal benefits to maintaining the dams, the owner
is in agreement they should be removed, their
removal makes economic sense, and there are
environmental benefits to be achieved from their
removal.
In keeping with this case-by-case approach, today,
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell sent a letter
to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission offering
her support for the removal of four PacifiCorp-owned
dams on the Klamath River. These dams, built in the
early 20th century, provided hydroelectric power
that was an important part of developing the region.
However, due to the costs of relicensing, their
owner has made a business decision that it makes
better economic sense to remove these dams than to
maintain them, a determination supported by the
public utility commissions of both California and
Oregon.
The removal of these four PacifiCorp
dams on the Klamath River is an integral component
to a basin-wide approach to restoration of the water
resources of the basin. The Klamath dams block what
was once the third-largest salmon run on the West
Coast, which served as a staple food source for
local American Indian tribes and an economic driver
for coastal fishing communities. Their removal will
have immediate benefits on the community and the
ecosystem. As a result of the Klamath dam removal,
more than 420 miles of historic spawning and rearing
habitat for salmon will be reopened, including
critical cold-water streams that will protect fish
from the effects of climate change, providing
benefits to many salmon in the basin including the
potential to increase adult Chinook salmon
production by approximately 80 percent. The removal
would also immediately improve water quality by
eliminating reservoirs that produce serious
temperature and dissolved-oxygen problems for salmon
and promote the growth of summer and fall algal
blooms that can be toxic to humans and animals
exposed to the water in the reservoirs and the
downstream river.
Just as importantly, because their removal is an
integral part of a basin-wide approach to
restoration of water resources, not only will the
environment benefit, but it will also secure a
future for farms and ranches in the basin. As
Secretary Jewell says in her letter, “we are, today,
exceptionally well positioned to preserve and
protect a culture, an economy, and a way of life not
just for the tribes but for ranchers and farmers as
well. The adverse effects of the recent basin
drought on both water supplies and the fishery,
combined with long-term climate trends, drive home
that the need to act is now and that only a
basin-wide approach – where dam removal is joined
with actions to preserve farming and ranching – is
sustainable in the long-term.”
Read the Secretary’s full recommendation for the
Klamath Dam removal to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.
Source: http://doi.gov
====================================================
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107, any copyrighted material
herein is distributed without profit or
payment to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving this
information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml |
