Recently, Congressman LaMalfa (CA-R) hand-delivered
constituent letters to a meeting with Secretary of
Interior, Ryan Zinke. The bundle of letters expressed
strong opposition to removing the four Klamath River
hydro-electric generating facilities....My
own letter to Secretary Zinke is included below:
Re: Klamath River Dam Removals
On
October 17, 2016, President Obama’s Secretary of the
Department of the Interior (DOI), Sally Jewel, submitted
a recommendation to the Secretary of Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) advocating for the removal
of four hydroelectric facilities on the Klamath River.
Jewel’s recommendation is diametrically opposed to the
opinions of my constituents, in Southern Oregon. Nearly
80 percent of voters in Klamath County, Ore., and
Siskiyou County, Calif., where the dams are located,
expressed their strong opposition to destroying these
four important facilities. These dams currently provide
a consistent supply of low-cost, renewable,
hydro-electric base-load grid-power.
Jewel writes, “While these dams brought prosperity to
many, their construction came at a steep cost to tribes
and fishing communities. The returning runs of salmon
repeatedly bludgeoning themselves against the new dam
walls were a harbinger of a declining fishery that cast
a cloud over those who, for millennia, have called the
Klamath home.”
These statements are all misleading.
First, the dams not only brought prosperity to the
region, but they continue to bring prosperity to all
people groups throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Throughout Oregon and the Northwest, enormous
percentages of electrical grid supply is provided by the
inexpensive, run-of-river hydro-electric generation
facilities in the region.
Second, I would suggest that salmon are not “bludgeoning
themselves” against existing dam structures that have
been in place for over a half-century. School children
know that salmon return to the place where they were
hatched to spawn.
This means that scores of generations and millions and
millions of salmon have never tried to swim past the
dams. Also, fish ladders currently exist to help native
fishes return to their spawning grounds and they have
been successfully navigating these waters for decades.
Third, the problems associated with enormous volumes of
sludge accumulated behind the dam structures ought to be
a genuine concern for future generations of salmon,
trout, aquatic wildlife and river habitat. The Draft
Environmental Impact Statement did not address or
investigate mitigation efforts that might be required to
handle the potential damage from the estimated 20
million cubic yards of accumulated sediment. This issue
is not easily side-stepped because it is an equivalent 2
million ten-yard dump truck loads of silt, sediment and
sludge which will be dumped into the river system.
Surely, the existing downstream salmon fisheries will
bear the burden from this harmful sludge.
Fourth, “the greatest harbinger of a declining fisheries
which might cast clouds over” those who live, work, and
play in the Klamath region needs to be correctly
identified. It isn’t dams. Rather, like the rampant wolf
population explosions in Montana, the salmon declines
are directly related to federal policies.
The passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)
in 1972 committed the United States to long-term
management, conservation, and moratoriums on taking
marine mammals, like the seals, sea lions and porpoises.
Studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) have documented the enormous
growth in sea lion populations and the negative impact
that seals and sea lions have on free swimming salmonids
in rivers and estuaries in the Northwest.
This is no small matter. The sea lion population has
ballooned to over 300,000 mammals in the Pacific
Northwest. Each adult lion consumes nearly 18 pounds of
fish per day. This equates to a take of nearly one
million tons of fish annually.
Additionally, salmon are a transpacific anadromous
species that spends between three and five years in the
Pacific Ocean migratory patterns before returning to
their spawning grounds. During this time in the open
ocean uncontrolled foreign fishing fleets have years of
unfettered access to these fish populations.
Therefore, the dams are not the problem.
The salmon populations have been thriving while the dams
have been in place. The dams provide inexpensive,
renewable electricity, flow control for watershed volume
and temperature, recreation and agricultural reservoir
capacity, and Forest Service fire suppression storage in
the extremely remote regions of Northern California and
Southern Oregon.
Decommissioning and removing the dams owned by
PacifiCorp is not about the river, its cultural
significance, jobs, race, ag-business, or water. Rather
it’s a potpourri of special interests, rent-seekers
disguised as noble businessmen, enlarged bureaucratic
dominion and strategically manipulated environmental
emotions
I
humbly ask for your consideration of the items I have
enumerated here and the evidence that has been
accumulated by the investigating agencies. I also
suggest that a willingness to listen to the constituents
who have lived, worked and invested their lives in the
Klamath River watershed should play an important role in
your determination.
In
closing, as a State Senator representing Southern
Oregon, my constituents have made their voices clear.
The dams are viable economic assets that taxpayers have
funded. Destroying these resources will not contribute
to Making America Great Again.
Therefore, my request is that the Bureau of Reclamation
(BOR) deny the decommissioning of the four dams within
the Klamath River system.
