PacifiCorp
Considers $300M
Fish Ladders
By JEFF BARNARD
February 7, 2007
PacifiCorp said
Wednesday it is
willing to spend
$300 million to
build fish
ladders and
other means to
get salmon over
its Klamath
River
hydroelectric
dams rather than
tear them out
and build a new
generating plant
to replace the
power.
The
Portland-based
utility serving
1.6 million
customers in six
Western states
said it already
has a shortage
of power, and
feels it is
better to hang
onto the 150
megawatts
produced by the
Klamath dams
than to face the
unknown costs of
managing
sediment
released by dam
removal and
rising prices of
natural gas to
generate
replacement
power.
Company
spokesman Dave
Kvamme said dam
removal remained
on the table in
settlement talks
with Indian
Tribes,
commercial
fishermen, and
conservation
groups that have
been campaigning
hard to remove
the dams as a
way of restoring
struggling
salmon runs in
the Klamath.
Federal
fisheries
agencies last
week required
the PacifiCorp (amex:
PPW.PR - news -
people ) to
provide for
salmon to swim
freely over the
four dams
straddling the
Oregon-California
border as a
mandatory
condition of
obtaining a new
license to
operate them for
the next 30 to
50 years,
raising pressure
on PacifiCorp to
consider the
cheaper
alternative of
removing the
dams.
The river was
once the
third-biggest
producer of
salmon on the
West Coast, but
last year
federal
fisheries
managers
practically shut
down commercial
salmon fishing
after the third
straight year of
poor returns of
wild chinook. |
