Klamath River Dam Removal Investigation PDF Download

Background The Klamath River basin (see Figure 1) has garnered national attention due to a series of complex natural resource issues that are related to water allocation, water quality, and threatened and endangered species.1 At one time, the Klamath River was the third- largest producer of salmon on the West Coast of the United States, along with the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers. [...] Federal agencies with interest in the Klamath include the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), which administers irrigation contracts; the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which oversee threatened and endangered species in the basin; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is responsible for hydropower licenses on the river; and the Bureau of [...] An analysis by the California Energy Commission has estimated that the cost of implementing the NMFS and FWS preliminary license prescriptions may reach $300 million.6 PacifiCorp has concerns that this expense may still not resolve the basin's fishery issues due to poor water quality upstream of the PacifiCorp dams.7 The federal agencies state that the fishway prescriptions would restore access to [...] They also state that fish passage would create the opportunity for returning salmon, steelhead, and lamprey to occupy more than 300 miles of historic habitat above the dams.8 Because some environmental and tribal stakeholders see the Klamath River dams as responsible for the decline of fish populations in the basin, they are pushing for dam removal to improve habitat and river flows for fish, even [...] The issues at play in the region r e g a r d i n g. n a t u r a l resources - such as endangered salmon, tribal PacifiCorp Removal of the Condit Dam fishing rights, and the human benefits from the Although PacifiCorp did not address removal of its power provided by the Klamath River dams in its license renewal application for dams.