PD Editorial: Alliance forms to end Klamath water war

<p>One of the West's great water wars may be drawing to a close. The battling parties are now allies, committed to ending a century-long dispute over water in the Klamath Basin.</p><p>After years of negotiations, farmers, fishermen, Indian tribes and environmental groups are supporting the removal of four dams on the Klamath River in Northern California and southern Oregon.</p><p>Removing the dams would reopen 300 miles of spawning habitat, with an Interior Department study projecting an 80 percent increase in salmon stocks. The multiparty agreement also offers new certainty for farmers in the Klamath Basin.</p><p>Legislation to implement the agreement was introduced this month by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. It promises dividends for fishermen, farmers and the environment, but getting the bill through Congress won't be easy.</p><p>First, there's the inevitable resistance to removing any dam. It won't be any different for the Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle dams, despite an unambiguous case for their removal.</p><p>During the George W. Bush administration, federal resource agencies determined that the dams could not be relicensed without installing passages for migrating fish, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. A related study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also completed under President Bush, determined that the four hydroelectric dams would become money losers — a combined $20 million a year — after accounting for the costs of the fish passages. Despite that one-sided balance sheet, one Northern California congressman insists it would be “insane” to remove the dams.</p><p>Any clear-headed assessment of the economics shows that it's insane to keep trying to save them. Even the dams' owner, PacifiCorp, supports removal, and it would pick up the cost. Money, nonetheless, is the second big congressional challenge.</p><p>Thompson and Merkley are calling on the federal government to spend $536 million over 15years to restore fisheries and other habitat and to provide oversight of the agreement. With the congressional supercommittee's recent failure to cut $1.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, new spending is a hard sell — even when old adversaries have come together to endorse the plan.</p><p>“At one point in time, we probably thought it would sail right through,” Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, told the Portland Oregonian. “Now we know it's going to be a long haul.”</p><p>But there are economic incentives for Congress to pass the legislation. A draft environmental statement says removing the dams could create 5,300 jobs in watershed restoration and agriculture as well as 400 jobs related to improved fishing conditions. Removing the dams would cost just 50 jobs.</p><p>No one benefits from resuming old rivalries in the Klamath Basin. Congress shouldn't let this opportunity pass. It's time to end the water war once and for all.</p>