Experts are “very confident” the decades-long goal of Klamath dam removal is slated to become a reality in 2023.
Removal of PacifiCorp’s four dams along the Klamath River will open 420 miles of salmon-spawning habitat as well as improve water quality and reduce critical temperature conditions that cause and increase disease in fish.
During a news briefing Friday, Mark Bransom, chief executive officer of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, or KRRC, said, “We are on the cusp of realizing a number of additional important and significant steps that will ultimately lead, we believe, to dam removal.”
“Folks have been working really hard on this and the KRRC is just honored to sort of stand on the shoulders of this group to be charged with getting dam removal across the finish line and I particularly would like to acknowledge the long efforts of the tribes in that regard,” Bransom said.
Dam removal hit a snag in July 2020 after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, only approved a partial transfer of ownership to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, requiring PacifiCorp to stay a co-licensee. The Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, signed in 2016, was amended in November 2020 to remove PacifiCorp from the license agreement and add the states of California and Oregon in addition to the KRRC.
FERC approved the transfer of the license from PacifiCorp to the KRRC and the states of Oregon and California, as co-licensees, for the Lower Klamath Hydroelectric Project in June.
“Shortly thereafter, FERC did announce that they were going to commence work under the National Environmental Policy Act,” Bransom said. “They issued a scoping document, they held a series of public scoping meetings for purposes of getting input from the public and interested parties as they design their environmental impact statement. They’ve indicated to us that we should expect to see a draft of the environmental impact statement sometime in the early part of 2022. Their current schedule for issuing the final (environmental impact statement) is sometime in the fall of 2022.”
Dam removal is anticipated to begin in early 2023.
“In order for us to accomplish that, we really need to have all of the final permits and authorizations and approvals no later than late spring or the middle of 2022,” he said. “… The KRRC is doing everything in our power to position us for that schedule, but of course, we do acknowledge that we’re reliant on the external forces including FERC and other regulators to complete their important work.”
Amy Cordalis, general counsel to the Yurok Tribe, underscored the urgency of dam removal and said, “It is absolutely necessary to healing the river.”
“It’s estimated that about 1% to 3% of the historic salmon are left and if we don’t take drastic measures on the Klamath River and throughout the Klamath Basin to change our management practices, to heal the river, to support ecological and environmental restoration, those salmon will go extinct in our lifetimes and there’s no other way around it,” she said.
The last four years of drought combined with the increasing prevalence of the deadly parasite Ceratonova shasta has killed off between 80% and 90% of juvenile salmon, Cordalis said.
“I want my great grandma’s river back,” she said. “She was born pre-dam. She enjoyed a river full of salmon. … She, along with all the other ancestors, had a clean, healthy river that provided for them and provided for the family. That’s how Yurok people have existed since the beginning of time.”
Sustainable Northwest Klamath Basin Manager Kelly Delpit discussed how dam removal would benefit ranchers and farmers upstream.
“Not a single farm, ranch, or municipality diverts water from the reservoir that is behind the dam slated for removal,” she said. “… A healthy Klamath River is really in everyone’s interest, including ag. Taking salmon and steelhead off the endangered species listings, improving water quality and the overall health of the river is in the best interest of ag because it reduces the regulatory burdens ag has to manage around now.”
Brian Johnson, California director for Trout Unlimited, underscored Delpit’s point that the Klamath dams “are not water supply dams.”
“But you will hear people who, maybe in good faith, not knowing something about the project will say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a water shortage here in California, we have flood risk, why would you be removing dams?’ but they’re not used for water supply,” he said. “… There is water storage up in Klamath Lake which is a natural lake that has human-made controls to store water and release it. These hydropower dams are used for hydropower only.”
Craig Tucker, a natural resources consultant for the Karuk Tribe, asked the panel, “How certain are we that this is the last leg of the process?”
Glen Spain, the northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen, said the process is 95% complete.
“We have certification permits from the states, this is the fourth round of (National Environmental Policy Act) environmental impact analysis. …We have this massive record that says that dam removal is not only possible but a good move for the ratepayers, a good move for the company, it won’t have any major impacts that can’t be mitigated, it will have impacts and there are mitigations for all those impacts available,” he explained. “I would say that we’re in the tail end and nothing is certain, but we’re very confident.”
More information on the dam removal process can be found at klamathrenewal.org.
Isabella Vanderheiden can be reached a 707-441-0504.
