| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"The Court Fool" |
| Date: |
29 Apr 2005 05:01:13 PM |
| Object: |
Future of Columbia Basin dams awaits federal judge's May ruling |
Future of Columbia Basin dams awaits federal judge's May ruling
Oregon and conservationists dispute U.S. claims that dams don't imperil
salmon
Thursday, April 28, 2005
JOE ROJAS-BURKE
A federal judge will rule in May on the latest legal challenge to
federal hydropower dams in the Columbia Basin.
Fishing and conservation groups and the state of Oregon are challenging
the federal government's conclusion that the dams will not thwart
recovery of threatened and endangered salmon stocks in the basin.
Conservation groups say the government is understating the effect of
dams on wild fish.
"I have a lot to consider," U.S. District Judge James Redden said
Wednesday after hours of testimony at a hearing on the case. In 2003,
he rejected the government's previous blueprint for protecting salmon
as falling short of Endangered Species Act standards.
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The most immediate effect of his ruling next month could be on the
price of electricity. Conservation groups seek more water for fish
passage that would leave less for generating power -- during a drought
year that is driving up wholesale energy prices.
The system of 14 federal dams sprawled across Oregon, Washington and
Idaho provides about 40 percent of the electricity used in Northwest
states. The dams also provide irrigation and barge transportation to
ports as far inland as Idaho.
Electric utilities, farmers and the state of Idaho support the federal
government's plan.
Conservation groups and some Northwest tribes have long said the most
effective way to return fish to self-sustaining numbers is to remove
four dams on the lower Snake River, where salmon and steelhead runs
have dwindled despite efforts to restore habitat and reduce the threat
from dams.
"I think we are getting to the point where we have to ask the question:
What if we can't have both?" said Jan Hasselman of the National
Wildlife Federation.
Federal officials and their attorneys said they do not have the
authority to order the removal of federal dams -- only Congress has
that power. To comply with a 2003 court order, the fisheries service,
working with the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, proposed a detailed plan to compensate for the dams' lethal
effects on salmon.
Among the actions, the agencies said, they will expand efforts to
reduce predators, such as Caspian terns and pikeminnow, that prey
heavily on young salmon.
The agencies said they will outfit all the major dams with structures,
called spillway weirs, that help juveniles pass downstream without
getting sucked into turbines. The proposal also calls for continuing
habitat restoration work and transporting as much as 90 percent of the
young of some salmon stocks by barge or truck past the dams.
Federal agencies put the annual cost of salmon protections at $600
million, not including losses of revenue from changes in dam operations
that reduce power production.
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