In the recently issued final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Klamath Project, FERC took a bewildering position siding with PacifiCorp by recommending the continued operations of five hydroelectric dams.  Previously, federal agencies issued “mandatory conditions” that PacifiCorp will have to comply with to get a new license, the most significant being the construction of fish ladders and screens to meet the legal requirement to ensure fish passage.  FERC’s analysis concluded that fish ladders and other measures, estimated by a federal study to cost up to $470 million, makes removing four of the five dams more economical than keeping the dams in place.  FERC also concluded that removing the Klamath River dams would improve water quality, salmon productivity and reduce fish disease.  Yet, FERC recommended keeping the dams and “trapping and hauling” fish to their historic habitat upstream of PacifiCorp’s project. This recommendation ignores the federal mandatory requirements to construct fish ladders.   

Further confusing the issue, FERC stated that mandatory conditions “may need to be included in a new license” and “incorporation of these mandatory conditions into a new license would cause us to modify or eliminate some of the environmental measures that we include in the Staff Alternative.”

On the other hand, FERC acknowledges that only dam removal will produce the full range of environmental benefits such as colder, cleaner water and improved spawning habitat, and that removing the four dams is cheaper, by $7 million per year, than keeping the dams and installing fish ladders and other measures.  This can be interpreted as strengthening the argument to remove the dams.

All parties now have until the end of the year to submit comments about the final EIS.  Before FERC can issue a new license to PacifiCorp, Oregon and California must issue their Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certifications for the project, We expect that process could take up to another year.  In the meantime, stakeholders continue to negotiate a settlement agreement about the fate of the dams and other basin restoration issues.