Herald and News Letter to
the Editor February 12, 2010 by Danny Hull, Klamath Falls
A 2007 cost estimate for installing
adequate new fish passage facilities in Iron Gate, Copco II,
Copco I, and, possibly J.C. Boyle Klamath River dams was
$300 million.
Payment very likely may be per: A small long-term
PacifiCorp electricity selling price increase; Pacific
Power’s “Blue Sky” voluntary donations; the U.S.A.
Endangered Species Act of 1973 “(a) FINDINGS — The Congress
finds and declares that — (5) encouraging the states and
other interested parties, through federal financial
assistance and a system of incentives, to develop and
maintain conservation programs, which meet national and
international standards, is a key to meeting the nation’s
international commitments and to better safeguarding, for
the benefit of all citizens, the nation’s heritage in fish,
wildlife, and plants.”
Each dam is readily accessible to new fishway
installation because: Iron Gate has an easily alterable,
long, wide north end spillway; Copco II is “only 33 feet
high” and has a long, shallow riverbed front approach; Copco
I has easily modifiable, outside of the dam’s east end, a
diversion tunnel, 356 feet by 16 feet by 18 feet, with an
original 2 feet/100 feet grade. J.C. Boyle already has an
adequate fish ladder.
In-river deep downtube flow feeds for some of the dams’
turbine feed tubes and/or a Klamath “A Canal”-type fish
screen for dams’ feed flume may be necessary to help direct
downriver fish traffic through the dams’ fishways.
A near future decades’ removal of any of the dams, per
and in consequence of only the Klamath Basin Restoration
Agreement and fishways absence, is a swindle against
humanity’s best welfare and environmental health.
Motives for the swindle are: Discrediting
of the Endangered Species Act; promotion of fossil fuel
combustion-powered electricity generation; financial
transaction incurred per both dam removal and electricity
generation system substitution for removed dams.
Danny Hull
Klamath Falls
