Lawmakers from the Pacific Northwest are asking Congress for approval to spend nearly $800 million in the next decade to restore salmon and sustain irrigation for farmers in the Klamath Basin of Southern Oregon and Northern California, where some of the bitterest battles in the nation have been fought over sharing water between fish and farms.
A bill introduced Thursday in Washington would authorize implementation of two landmark agreements to remove four dams, restore salmon habitat and assure minimum flows to farms on a federal irrigation project.
Estimated to represent $536 million in new federal spending and $262 million in existing funding that would be redirected, the Klamath Basin Economic Restoration Act is widely anticipated to face a tough road in Congress, where budget cutting has been a top priority among Republicans.
The estimated $290 million cost to remove the dams would be covered by dam owner PacifiCorp with surcharges paid by customers, and bonds that have yet to be approved by the state of California.
Co-sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he recognized he had a tough task educating members of the House and Senate about the advantages of the bill, but hoped they would see it makes business sense by lowering costs for dam owner PacifiCorp and its ratepayers, and supports the farmers, tribes, conservation groups and others who overcame decades off fighting each other to find common ground.
“There is no easy path,” he said. “This was the first step in a conversation.”
Co-sponsor Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., said the bill faced its best chance of passage first in the Senate, but if he allowed the opposition of Republican colleagues in the House to deter him, “I might as well stay home.
“This is something that would be tough even in good business times,” he said. “This is not only a good thing to do to ensure proper water flows for the fishing community and the farming community. This is something that creates some 4,000 jobs.”
PacificCorp spokesman Bob Gravely said if dam removal does not go through, the utility would be faced with paying even more money to qualify the dams for relicensing.
“If this doesn”t happen, we can”t just say, ”Oh well, let”s continue as if nothing happened,”” he said. “We negotiated this deal as the best way out of the situation for our customers. For now we just remain committed to it and hope to get the bill passed in the Senate to keep it alive.”
The agreements were signed in ceremonies in the rotunda of the Oregon Capitol in Salem in 2010 by Oregon and California, tribes, conservation groups and farmers to end decades of battles over sharing scarce water between farms on a federal irrigation project and fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.
They are supported by farmers on the federal irrigation project, the Karuk and Yurok tribes, dam owner PacifiCorp, California salmon fishermen, and some conservation groups, such as American Rivers.
“This is a milestone,” Greg Addington, director of the Klamath Water Users Association, representing project farmers, said in an email. “It represents a significant step toward Klamath Project irrigators having a secure and dependable water supply — something they have not had for over a decade. Time now for Congress to step up to the plate.”
But the Hoopa Tribe, farmers off the irrigation project, Siskiyou County supervisors and Oregon Wild, a conservation group, have opposed them. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., won a House vote on blocking the agreements by removing funding for key scientific studies, and Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., has questioned the science and job numbers supporting dam removal.
“The full House voted earlier this year against proceeding with the Klamath dam removal,” McClintock said in a statement. “That precedent, and a $13 trillion national debt, speaks volumes on the chances of this legislation passing in the House over the next year.”
The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Interior to decide whether to remove the four hydroelectric dams to open some 300 miles of spawning habitat to salmon blocked for a century and give farmers better assurances of irrigation water that was shut off during a drought in 2001 to protect threatened salmon.
When irrigation was restored in 2002, tens of thousands of adult salmon died before they could spawn in low and warm water conditions that spread disease.
An analysis by Interior found implementing the agreements would create more than 4,000 jobs in agriculture, restoration of salmon habitat, and boost commercial harvest of chinook salmon from the Klamath River.
For farmers on the Klamath Restoration project, the agreements call for stable minimum irrigation deliveries, help developing local power sources to pump water, and support for a drought management plan for low water years.
The agreements also set minimum flows for salmon and national wildlife refuges.
If approved next year by the secretary of Interior, actual removal of the dams would not start until 2020.
