19 SEPT 2010 Removal of Elwha River dams begins

5 OCT 2009 Utility agrees to remove Klamath dams

TRIBE FIGHTS DAMS TO PUT SALMON BACK ON TABLE

A TURNING point in the debate over dam removal in the Pacific Northwest is expected later this year when a deeply divided Congress decides whether to authorize removing four large dams on the Snake River in an effort to restore salmon runs. Further information on breaching dams is available at the Army Corps of Engineers Web site.

Environmentalists advocate breaching the dams - removing their earthen portions to allow the river to flow freely around their concrete structures - as the best way to save some endangered species of fish. But the impact would extend far beyond the fish to the entire Pacific Northwest region and beyond.
The potential winners include some powerful interests: Rail and trucking firms. Grains and wood products now barged down the Snake River would have to be transported by other means. Railroads and truckers would expand to pick up business worth about $100 million a year.

Native American tribes. Returning the river to a more normal state carries no guarantee of restored salmon runs, but it is thought that the slow water created by the dams is a threat to salmon smolts trying to reach the sea. Native tribes anticipate tribal chinook harvests would more than double within 25 years of breaching, from 292,000 pounds to 682,000 pounds a year, says the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission. The financial boost for tribes would be huge, but spiritual and cultural benefits would be even greater, said Don Sampson, the commission's executive director. "To Indians, these fish are priceless," he said.

Commercial fishermen. Proponents of breaching expect a more fish-friendly river to bring 5,000 jobs and $100 million in annual revenue to former fishing communities, said Glen Spain, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. The Corps estimates a much smaller benefit of about $1 million per year.

Power companies. Breaching would eliminate the generation of about 5 percent of electricity used in the Pacific Northwest. Procuring replacement power from power companies and reinforcing transmission lines would cost customers $250 million to $300 million a year. At the same time, reserves would be in shorter supply, driving up all power prices - and consumer rates - across the region, analysts said. Recreational outfitters. Removing dams would re-create a wild river, swift and free-flowing. This draws not only fish but anglers, kayakers, canoeists, jet-boaters, rafters and tourists of all stripes. Spending on recreation and tourism in Eastern Washington would increase from $62 million a year to $129 million a year, a preliminary study by the Corps shows.

Everyone who values wild fish. Economists increasingly affix a price tag to the sense of peace or satisfaction people experience in knowing that a thing or place exists. Called "existence value," it is difficult to calculate how much it is worth, but to simply know that Yosemite National Park, for example, is there has value. Likewise, the value to society of knowing that salmon are alive and in the river has been placed by some at $220 million to $1 billion. Some of this gain is linked, inevitably, to loss by others.
Among them:
River pilots, dockworkers and farmers. Opponents of breaching say those jobs are more valuable to society than potentially restored salmon runs. In Lewiston, Idaho, alone, 779 jobs paying $35.6 million a year would be eliminated if dams were removed, according to a University of Idaho study. Thanks to the dams, Lewiston is now the farthest-inland seaport. Unfair? Perhaps.

But when government policy shifts, so do fortunes. Already, the prospect of breaching is creating an economic fault line across the Pacific Northwest. "You're changing an environment, a set of institutions, ways of doing business," said John Mitchell, a U.S. Bank economist in Portland, Ore. "When you have a change like that, you have winners and you have losers."

Inexpensive electricity from hydropower is the biggest benefit of the dams. And perhaps nowhere more than in the utility markets would winners of dam breaching be more evident.
Built during a 15-year period in the 1960s and '70s, the dams - Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor - fulfilled President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Depression-era promise to protect consumers from profiteering utility trusts. Power from the dams is sold by the Bonneville Power Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, for $250 million a year. But if breaching occurs, private firms would fill the gap with power that costs more to generate. Northwest ratepayers would get monthly reminders - in their power bills - of the cost of saving fish.
Residential customers would see their bills increase by an estimated $1.50 to $5.30 a month, according to the Corps. The average residential power bill in the Northwest currently is $63.60 a month, compared with a national average of $100.80.
"The ratepayer is going to pay more, and somebody is going to get money," said Audrey Perino, an economist at the BPA's Portland headquarters.
That "somebody" could be any one of a dozen or more companies planning new, gas-powered generating plants in the region. Breaching would make electricity scarce, boosting its price and hastening the day when new plants make profits.
Who's who in power plants
The list of companies planning to build power plants in the Northwest is extensive. It includes outsiders such as Florida Power & Light as well as area companies such as Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp.
Competition in the electricity industry also has made room for middlemen who buy and sell power contracts. A leading power trader is Enron Corp., PGE's Houston-based parent, which sells to client utilities and industry outside PGE's territory.
"Enron is going to be a player in the Northwest," said Jason Eisdorfer, a lawyer for the Citizens Utility Board in Portland. "And they're going to make money off of it."
Neither company has taken a public position over dam breaching. Both companies have contributed to American Rivers, the conservation group leading the charge for breaching, but the money was earmarked for other, specific uses, company officials said. Both plan to take in stride any federal decision on Snake River dams, in part because each owns dams that also could be rendered obsolete by environmental laws.

Benefactors of breaching
A list of potential winners of dam breaching, however, extends well beyond the obvious. And those on it often are reluctant to embrace opportunities that might cost others. That is particularly true in Eastern Washington and central Idaho, where dams are part of everyday life.
The Port of Pasco, a 600-acre facility at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, is a prime example. It is now a sleepy driveby for Portland-bound barges that start out in Lewiston and other upriver ports. But if Snake dams are removed, Pasco can't help but expand, according to economists. Pasco, situated 330 miles inland from the Pacific, would replace Lewiston as the farthest-inland seaport and could be faced with handling much of the 4 million tons a year of barge traffic now loaded at eight Snake River ports. A Burlington Northern trunk line runs through the port's property, positioning the facility to receive grain shipments from the inland West for direct loading onto barges.
Port Director Jim Toomey acknowledged room for growth. "Opportunity is not exactly knocking down our doors," he said on a recent tour of the port. "We've got to create it."

A jet-boater's paradise
Breaching, for example, would turn the Snake into a jet-boater's paradise, boosting sales for Northwest Marine and Sport, a jet-boat manufacturer in Pasco. But Dennis Redmond, the manager, says he wants no part of breaching.
"If we were a selfish company and wanted the benefits, we'd be on the bandwagon, 'Take 'em out, take 'em out,' " Redmond said. "But we grew up in this town, and we've got relatives that depend on the dams."

Ed Whitelaw, an economist with ECONorthwest in Eugene, Ore., has a theory on why people in dam country would not see or would choose to ignore the economic gains of breaching. When economic change is afoot, he said, perception always lags reality.
"If dams are breached, Pasco makes out like a bandit in every measure of economic activity," said Whitelaw, whose firm has been hired by breaching proponents. "They aren't seeing that there because the benefits are still abstract. The dams are real."
Once considered a "free" resource, rivers and the habitat they provide have economic value in their own right, value that dams diminish.
The Corps is wrapping up a two-year study of the feasibility of breaching, and it will weigh the competing values as part of its work. Some values are easy to determine. The market values of power, navigation and irrigation provided by the dams are worth a combined $299 million to $357 million a year, according to preliminary Corps data.

Effects to be determined
But rather than settle the debate, attempts to attach dollar figures to "nonmarket" values created by a dam-free river are proving controversial. Estimates of "existence value" by the Corps - the peace of mind people gain from knowing fish are in the river - are widely contested.
The Corps plans to release a full report on the economic effects of breaching in October. Impacts on regional employment and the national economy are still to be determined.
But some findings have been published and already are under attack by opponents of breaching. "There's never going to be the remotest rational economic case for removing the dams, now or forever," said Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash. Gorton has proposed legislation on Capitol Hill barring BPA, the utility, from collecting rates to pay for breaching.
Two Northwest Democrats, Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio, both of Oregon, say they want to leave the option open in the interest of a full debate. Proponents of breaching predict that the economy of the inland Northwest would adjust quickly and rebuild itself around the benefits of a free-flowing river. The promise of a better future won't sway people who would lose their jobs, they acknowledged. But the promise of money might help.
A key part of proponents' strategy is getting the federal government to commit millions of dollars to help barge operators, irrigators and others adjust to a life without dams.
It won't be an easy sell on Capitol Hill. But proponents said doing so is a critical step toward resolving the fish-vs.-dams debate on the national political stage.
"Right now, the short-term economics are in the way of having a good debate about what we want for the future," said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers, a conservation group in Washington.

Our idea of `progress' has made progress itself
WHITE SALMON RIVER, Klickitat County - I am standing on a canyon ledge looking down at a magnificent river and imagining the possibilities.
And why not? People have probably stood on this spot for decades, if not longer, wondering what might be. Nearly a century ago, people with vision saw the power of this river and understood how the stream could be transformed into electricity that would light great Northwest cities.
[ FOR COMPLETE STORY Our idea of 'progress' ]

No dots to connect dam removal targets
ANYONE imagining that Northwest dams are lined up like billiard balls waiting for an artful carom shot to take them all out had better relax.
The Condit Dam on the White Salmon River is different than the two dams on the Elwha River and worlds apart from the four federal dams on the Snake. If they share a common thread at all, it has more to do with missed opportunities to accommodate salmon runs when they were built.
[ FOR COMPLETE STORY Dam Removel Targets ]