Associated Press & Emily Wood
 
November 13, 2008
 
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- PacifiCorp signed a non-binding agreement with California and Oregon officials Thursday to start down a road that will lead to the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River starting in 2020.
 
It would be the largest dam removal in U.S. history.
 
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says President Bush gave the direction to work out a deal to remove the dams to help one of the West Coast's most beleaguered salmon runs.
 
Kempthorne spoke Thursday on a conference call marking the signing of the agreement by PacifiCorp. Kempthorne says the president told officials "to find a collaborative solution" that doesn't pit various interested parties against one another.
 
The Bush administration had strongly backed farmers in 2001 after the Endangered Species Act forced the shut-off of irrigation water to thousands of acres of farms to leave enough for threatened salmon.
 
Conservation groups like the Klamath Riverkeeper have been pushing PacifiCorp to shut down the four dams, which are currently up for re-licensing. Riverkeeper says their renewal would be devastating.
 
"Dams are re-licensed federally every 30 to 50 years. So if PacifiCorp were to get a new operating license on their dams, we'd likely see salmon go extinct," says Malena Marvin with Klamath Riverkeeper.
 
Riverkeeper says the dams block salmon from swimming to the Upper Klamath Basin.
 
"The biggest issue we have to dams is their impacts to water quality, and water quality impacts salmon by propagating fish diseases and parasites. And they also cause pretty serious outbreaks of toxic algae," says Marvin.
 
Siskiyou County supervisors do not want to see the dams go until more studies are done.
 
"Their concerns are that insufficient studies have been performed to deal with the impacts to the economy of Siskiyou County, and to deal with issues of pollutants possibly behind the dams," says Siskiyou County Counselor Thomas Guarino.
 
Neither group on either side of the issue has conducted an economic study.
 
"We feel good about an agreement to remove dams, but we're very cautious because this is not a final agreement," says Marvin.
 
The nonbinding agreement signed by Kempthorne, PacifiCorp and the governors of Oregon and California calls for a final agreement by June 30, 2009, and gives the federal government until 2012 to figure out if removing the dams is feasible. It sets 2020 as the deadline for starting to remove the dams, and caps costs at $450 million, with PacifiCorp liable for $200 million through future rate increases.