Agreement to take down Klamath dams? Not likely

Oregon Wild Klamath Campaign Coordinator argues that the recently signed Agreement in Principle deserves a harder look.

The Klamath Basin agreement for removal of the river's lower four dams, is 32 pages long. I am beginning to wonder if those commenting in support of it only made it through the first two-and-a-half pages. A thorough read of the document reveals that the devil is most certainly in the details.

A diverse group has worked for dam removal in one of the West's most debated and ecologically valuable watersheds. Unfortunately, rather than a road map for dam removal, the recently signed tentative agreement is the dysfunctional product of a Bush-led Department of Interior - an agency that has failed the Klamath time and again over the last eight years. It is a mystery why cooperating parties, including the states of Oregon and California, would allow a lame-duck president to lay a faulty foundation for Klamath Basin policy for President-elect Barack Obama.

There is no doubt that dam removal is necessary to restore the Klamath River's salmon runs, and the cultures and wildlife that depend on a healthy river. However, the agreement would delay any work to remove the harmful dams until 2020.

While the delayed time line is troubling, even worse is the provision that strips Oregon and California of their ability to keep Klamath River water clean. The agreement allows PacifiCorp to bypass Clean Water Act certification, a process viewed as an insurmountable hurdle on the road to dam relicensing. Rather than mandating a change from conditions that led to toxic water and dead salmon, the agreement guarantees status-quo management for at least another decade.

Read deeper into the document and realize it is rife with "get out of jail free" cards for dam-owner PacifiCorp. To start, the agreement isn't even a final dam removal deal; it's simply a commitment to talk about a deal.

Long before any dam is removed, the agreement requires a cost-benefit analysis of dam removal (even though such studies have already been done); and legislation in by both Oregon and California to raise a combined $450 million from a general bond paid for by taxpayers and rate increases to power customers (despite the fact that PacifiCorp's parent company holds assets worth nearly $40 billion). It is no wonder PacifiCorp has signed onto this deal.

There is no guarantee PacifiCorp will ever be required to remove the Klamath River dams.

Perhaps the greatest flaw in the agreement is its link to the Bush-backed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which requires nearly $1 billion from federal taxpayers at a time when the national economy is suffering. It would also require Congress to lock in Klamath River flows that fail to meet the scientifically established needs of salmon, and extend commercial agricultural development for another 50 years on the two most important National Wildlife Refuges in the western United States.

In order to create long-term resolution to the Klamath Basin's water resource challenges, we must develop a plan that brings water demands back into balance with what the region can naturally provide. Such a balance can be better accomplished through a realistic plan for dam removal without making sacrifices for PacifiCorp, by phasing out commercial agriculture on National Wildlife Refuge land, and using good science to inform local and federal management of river flows and wetlands in the basin.

Getting past the hoopla that talk of tearing down dams always creates, we can see the recent agreement on the Klamath for what it really is: an empty promise. Toxic algae will still flow in the river; threatened salmon may still die by the tens of thousands; bald eagles will still alight in a National Wildlife Refuge planted with potatoes bound for market.

It is certainly time for a new direction in the Klamath. Sadly, we are being offered more of the same.

(Ani Kame'enui is the Klamath campaign coordinator for Oregon Wild, an educational and scientific organization that works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and water. www.oregonwild.org.)