Utility agrees to remove Klamath dams, help salmon

MEDFORD, Ore. — The utility that owns four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River has agreed to terms for their removal, a key milestone in efforts to restore what was once the third-biggest salmon run on the West Coast and end decades of battles over scarce water.

PacifiCorp, the states of California and Oregon, American Indian tribes, federal agencies, irrigators and conservation groups announced the draft agreement Wednesday. It is expected to be signed by the end of the year.

Removal of the dams is not scheduled to start until 2020 and depends on funding for the removal, a federal determination that it will actually help salmon and is in the public interest, and authorization from Congress.

"This agreement marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Klamath River and for the communities whose health and way of life depend on it," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. "Hats off to all the stakeholders who have worked so hard to find common ground on one of the most challenging water issues of our time."

PacifiCorp will not bear the estimated $450 million cost of removing the dams. Oregon has approved $180 million in surcharges on state ratepayers. Another $250 million depends on California approving general obligation bonds.

"We are not in the business of taking out dams, but the Klamath Basin crisis is a unique situation," Dean S. Brockbank, vice president and general counsel of PacifiCorp, said in an interview. "We have been able to arrive at a settlement and a business deal that is in the best interests of our customers because it minimizes costs and guards against the risks of the alternatives."

The turning point came in May 2008, when an aide to former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorn summoned Brockbank to a meeting at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service training center in Shepherdstown, W.Va. They were locked down for a week with representatives of the Bush administration and the governors of Oregon and California, Brockbank said.

They "made it very clear from a public policy point of view that they did not want these dams relicensed," Brockbank said. "Once that became abundantly clear, we shifted our framework from relicensing to a settlement involving a possible dam removal framework."

Michael Carrier, policy director for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, said the meeting was a "watershed moment" that gave the governor's office a new understanding of what was at stake for PacifiCorp.

The utility serves 1.6 million customers in Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, and is owned by MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Warren Buffett's Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc.