"Then, because of great floods, the memory of things contained in these
instruments will suffer incalculable loss, even letters. This will
happen to the "Aquiloners" [the Northern People] by the will of God."
Epistle to Henri II
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Northwest could see $100 million loss for dam-water diversion
By CHRISTOPHER SMITH
Associated Press writer
BOISE, Idaho - The Pacific Northwest would lose an estimated $100
million in potential power this drought year if five Snake and Columbia
River hydroelectric dams are ordered to run turbines at minimum speeds
and divert more water over spillways to help young salmon swim to the
ocean, analysts say.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which concluded its
three-day meeting here Thursday, was briefed Wednesday on potential
scenarios if a federal judge in Oregon orders an alternative operating
plan for Lower Granite, Little Goose, Upper Monumental and Ice Harbor
dams on the Snake and McNary Dam on the Columbia this summer.
The state of Oregon, environmentalists, fishing groups and Indian
tribes have sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over the
agency's plan governing dam operations to protect endangered salmon
species.
The plaintiffs have asked for an injunction to require Bonneville Power
Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers to increase spills over
the five dams to get more juvenile salmon downstream this year. But the
service's operating plan permits the regional power marketing agency
and the corps to move fish downstream in trucks and barges rather than
divert river flows away from turbines. Flows over spillways do not
generate electricity.
"Just the action that calls for diverting more water around turbines, I
estimated it to be a $100 million cost, using the summer forecast
(electricity) price of $74 per megawatt-hour,'' said John Fazio, a
senior analyst for the four-state panel that oversees electric power
system planning and fish and wildlife recovery in the Columbia River
Basin.
If another request to cut salmon-to-sea travel time by upping the
velocity of downstream flows is also ordered by the court, "I just
don't how big that cost will be,'' Fazio said Thursday.
Speeding up salmon travel downstream would require releasing additional
water from upstream reservoirs or drawing down river levels at the four
Snake and four lower Columbia dams, or a combination of both.
Compared to current capacity plans, river sections behind the Snake
dams would drop another 6 feet from late June through August and the
water behind the Columbia dams would be drawn down another 5=BD feet
from July through August under the scenario.
"What we've requested in the preliminary injunction is a 10 percent
increase in velocity to help the juvenile salmon migrate out to sea,
but what we've left open is for the federal government to determine the
suite of options they could use to do that,'' said Jaime Pinkham of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. "Mortality rates with
transportation are too high and we feel the survivability of fish is
best when we have better in-stream flows.''
But some council members worry about the financial impact to BPA should
the dams be ordered to draw down to "minimum operating pool'' levels
this year, when spring and summer runoff is forecast to be the 11th
driest in the basin since record-keeping began in 1929.
"One of the things to watch is how close Bonneville is to not being
able to make their federal payments,'' said Jim Kempton of Idaho, vice
chairman of the council. "We've never defaulted on that and you would
not want to do that and create any reason to continue the attack on the
BPA system.''
A White House plan to force BPA to charge market rather than wholesale
prices for its power was defeated by members of Congress from Western
states last month who argued such rate hikes would cripple the region's
economy.
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