[env-trinity] Klamath Indians to bend ear of dam owner

Tom Stokely tstokely at trinityalps.net
Tue Aug 17 13:38:39 PDT 2004


http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2336620,00.html

KLAMATH RIVER BASIN
Klamath Indians to bend ear of dam owner 
Eureka Times-Standard - 8/15/04
By John Driscoll, staff writer
Representatives of four Klamath River tribes will meet with the CEO of dam owner PacifiCorp, just weeks after visiting its parent company in Scotland. 

Two Yurok tribal councilmen described the visit to Scotland as successful, having drawn the attention of ScottishPower to problems the tribe sees with the continued operations of its subsidiary's hydropower facilities on the Klamath, half a world away.

More than two dozen people from tribes, fishing groups and environmental organizations traveled to Scotland last month, and some got the ear of Scottish Power CEO Ian Russell. Tribal representatives will meet with PacifiCorp CEO Judi Johansen in Redding on Monday. 

"He gave us his word that PacifiCorp would start negotiating with the tribes," said Councilman Sid Nix.

The Yurok, Hoopa, Karuk and Klamath tribes are pressing for the removal of six dams on the Klamath. The facilities' license expires in 2006.

The dams are in part responsible for the decline of salmon runs, but the tribes say they've also taken a toll on other fishes, like lamprey, candlefish and sturgeon. In PacifiCorp's draft application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the company proposed trucking salmon around the dams, but did not consider building fish ladders, which could be expensive.

Nix said the tribes are committed to the removal of the dams, and believes the trip to Scotland advanced their cause.

The California Energy Commission and the National Research Council have both recommended FERC analyze removal of some of the dams.

Questions in that analysis might include the effects of dam removal on water quality and flow and how sediment trapped behind the dams can move out of the system.

Yurok Councilman Richard Myers said many of the ScottishPower shareholders first learned about the effects of the dams during the tribes' visit.

"They seemed to be good people, and want to return the salmon home," Myers said. 

Meanwhile, the tribes and fishing and environmental groups on Friday called on President Bush -- stumping in Portland, Ore., -- to release more water down the Klamath. They want to avoid a repeat of the 2002 fish kill, which wiped out 34,000 to 68,000 salmon. 

A plan is being hashed out by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation this week to release water from Lewiston Dam on the Trinity River, the Klamath's main tributary. Fishermen on the lower Klamath have reported extremely warm water and a small number of fish that appear to be succumbing to gill rot, one of the symptoms of a disease that killed fish in 2002. 

They are concerned that the planned flows, expected to increase beginning Aug. 22, might come too late. 

The groups say the Bush administration's continued denial that it's irrigation project upstream on the Klamath prompted the fish kill doesn't square with its efforts to find, and buy, water to release from the Trinity. #



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