Oregon and California said Tuesday they will remove four hydroelectric dams in the Klamath Basin that have been at the heart of a years-long fight between tribes, farmers and environmentalists. Tribes say that the dams keep Coho salmon from reaching their spawning grounds and also block cooler water, leaving thousands of the fish dead from overheating.
Farmers, though, argue that they’re being pushed to extinction, not the fish. In 2001, 10,000 farmers and their supporters drew national attention to the Klamath Basin — the nearly 16,000-square-mile region in California and Oregon drained by the Klamath River — when they protested an irrigation shutoff, after regulators refused to send water to their fields for the Coho’s sake.
In December, Republicans in Congress failed to pass a water-sharing plan for the Klamath Basin that had taken stakeholders years to write. In that earlier effort, farmers had conceded to take less water and retire thousands of acres of agricultural land in exchange for a more reliable water supply from tribes, which have senior water rights, says The Sacramento Bee. But Republicans feared it would set a precedent for dam-removal across the west.
By only addressing the removal of the dams and leaving out other key concerns found in the earlier plan, Oregon and California have found a way to by-pass Congressional approval. The states will work instead with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an administrative body. PacifiCorp, the-Portland-based energy company that owns the dams, is willing to help remove them rather than pay to upgrade outdated structures.
While Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s office called the recent news a “first step” toward a larger solution for tribes, farmers and environmentalists, others fear it could end up a poor compromise.
“It’s not OK for that to be happening absent the more comprehensive water settlement,” Greg Addington, former director of the Klamath Water Users Association, which has about 1,200 farm and ranch members in the Klamath Basin, told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s not what was agreed to.”