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1/18/05
Tam
Moore, Capital Press |
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Federal grant aims to clean up Klamath
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
investing in a cleaner Klamath River, and both
the EPA and PacifiCorp, owner of hydroelectric
dams on the upper Klamath, will study a
long-standing algae problem.
In a grant to American Indian tribes in
California announced earlier this month, the
EPA will give the Yurok Tribe money to close a
road up Terwer Creek near the river’s mouth. A
separate grant goes to Trinity County as part
of reshaping river banks in an area where
experimental storm-like reservoir discharges
began this year. There’s also money for
closing about five miles of road on the South
Fork of the Trinity.
The main stem of the Klamath is diverted in
Oregon for irrigation of nearly 200,000 acres
of Klamath Basin croplands on both sides of
the California-Oregon border. The Trinity, the
largest Klamath tributary, is diverted by the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for its Central
Valley Project irrigating California farms.
Both streams are the focus of two decades of
restoration activities pointing toward fixing
habitat for troubled runs of ocean-going
salmon.
The EPA in a separate grant to five Klamath
River tribes agreed to help pay for ongoing
water quality studies dealing with blue green
algae discharges from Iron Gate Dam, the
lowest PacifiCorp reservoir, about five miles
east of the I-5 freeway in Siskiyou County.
Earlier this year the EPA and tribal water
resource investigators issued an alert when
the 2005 water quality monitoring program
found traces of the potentially toxic algae in
the main river over 100 miles downstream from
Iron Gate.
The Associated Press reports that the Karuk
Tribe, whose homeland is in the middle
Klamath, got the California Public Utility
Commission to order a $450,000 algae study as
a condition of PacifiCorp’s proposed sale to
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. The settlement
agreement is said to be part of a PUC order
still in progress. Six states, including
California and Oregon, must sign off on the
MidAmerican sale, which also requires changes
to existing federal law.
“This is a forum for us to really make clear
to MidAmerican what they are getting into,”
said Craig Tucker, coordinator of the Karuk’s
Klamath campaign. “The Klamath project is a
very small part of PacifiCorp in terms of
profits and power production. But it’s a huge
part of liability and contention among the
Klamath Basin stakeholders.”
The PacifiCorp hydroelectric license, now
covering 151 megawatts of power generation at
Iron Gate and upstream to Klamath Falls, Ore.,
expires next April. Settlement talks on the
license’s renewal are being carried out
separately behind closed doors. PacifiCorp has
said it wants to present a package of
agreements to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.
The Associated Press contributed to this
report. Tam Moore is based in Medford, Ore.
His e-mail address is tmoore@capitalpress.com. |
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