|
|
[1] BPA CUSTOMER GROUPS SOUND OFF OVER FUTURE FISH COSTS
Bonneville Power Administration customer groups vowed at last month's meeting of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to play more of a role in keeping the agency's future fish and wildlife costs under control so future power rates will go down.
Some tribal representatives also on hand at the council meeting pushed for much higher levels of funding to restore habitat through the subbasin plans now being developed.
With BPA's annual fish and wildlife costs estimated at $692 million, including an average of $357 million in annual power purchases and forgone revenues from operations to help ESA-listed fish, utility groups want those costs to remain stable or decrease. Their comments came during a discussion of BPA's long-term fish funding commitment that may be formalized in a memorandum of understanding and used in the 2007-2009 rate case.
But a budget exercise by fish agencies to peg potential future costs found that another $300 million a year in fish costs will be needed over the next 10 years to pay for implementing every piece of the subbasin habitat restoration plans being completed under the Council's guidance. The Council adopted another 25 plans last week, making 48 now completed, with 11 yet to go.
The plans are still a long way from implementation. Fish recovery goals still have to be finalized, projects developed and prioritized, and then OK'd by the Council. And somewhere along the line, the limit of BPA's financial obligation has to be spelled out. Fish managers have recommended in the draft review generated by their budget exercise that BPA should pay for all of it.
John Saven, director of Northwest Requirements Utilities, which uses about 25 percent of BPA's power, said his members expect power rates to go down in 2007 after seeing the 40 to 50 percent rate increases since 2001. He wants the priority firm rate to decrease from more than $30/MWh to $27/MWh over the next rate period.
"We support scientifically-based programs for fish mitigation measures that are consistent with the Endangered Species Act," Saven said. "But at the same time, Bonneville can't be used simply as a punchbowl to fund all activities, particularly those not associated with the FCRPS."
Saven said he was disappointed to be in front of the Council because there didn't seem to be any general consensus "on where we are headed." He said potential consequences of the upcoming BiOp litigation could be an additional $200 million in annual hydro costs if the system is required to implement the "reference" operation described in the revised BiOp. That's when dam operations are maxed out for fish survival, mainly by adding more water and more spill to aid migrating fish.
Saven said when it was added up, it came to more than 17 times the amount of money that Bonneville has out for regional discussions--the $40 million placeholder in talks about future power for Direct Service Industries.
"What is the value of signing a memorandum of understanding?" Saven asked. "It implies that you understand something. And frankly, I don't think that regional consensus of understanding exists." He said he would probably suggest to the BPA administrator that there be no MOU, or an escape clause if the federal government loses the BiOp litigation.
Saven said what "triggered" him was finding out last month about the more than $300 million in previous fish studies conducted by federal agencies that is another BPA obligation.
He said that when he looked at the $146 million in direct annual fish costs and BPA overhead, it seems that $57 million was directly assigned to "research, evaluation, monitoring, data gathering and coordination," which added up to about 39 percent of the total budget. After taking into account another $6.1 million for monitoring and evaluation in those direct project budgets, he said he figured that only 57 percent of this entire amount went directly to fish and wildlife programs.
If that's the case, said Saven, and "people are knocking on the doors saying Bonneville customers have a responsibility for subbasin planning, what I would say to you as a group, in terms of recommendations, is to ask to see some alternatives."
He suggested policymakers look at the possibility of moving some of the funding from analytical functions to more on-the-ground habitat restoration. "At least, explore that," he told the Council.
Saven said his own members support the ESA obligations of the customers, "but we need to come to closure on some of these big issues that are facing the region, and I would ask your help to elevate some of the issues to a high enough level that maybe we can move closer to that closure."
Scott Corwin, vice president of PNGC Power, said his customers--14 rural electric cooperatives--keep asking when they are going to get some rate relief. With fish and wildlife costs about 20 percent of BPA's revenue requirement, and doubling over the last eight or nine years, he called it "an obvious area of concern."
More Budget Scrutiny
Corwin said his group supports funding implementation of the BiOp through BPA's direct F&W program, which means that a prioritization process is necessary. "In our world, it all needs to be subject to scrutiny..."
Any long-term agreements, spanning on the order of 20 years, will have to limit upside potential, Corwin said. He suggested that the independent economic panel sometimes used by the Power Council should play a much larger role in the prioritization process. He called "extremely questionable," the draft estimates of the $3 billion in overall subbasin costs.
"The problems are spread across all the H's [habitat, harvest, hydro, hatcheries]," Corwin said, and obligations should be as well, instead of the "relatively arbitrary" notion that BPA should shoulder the entire financial burden.
Alcoa representative Michael Early, who's company is currently operating two of three aluminum smelters in Washington, said Alcoa was struggling to maintain operations, and expectations were that present power rates would not be the new norm. He said rates need to go down in the next rate period to give the Northwest economy a chance to rebound.
Early said the Power Act calls for balancing fish needs with an economical power supply. Customers need to see real rate reduction coming from policymakers.
Since BPA's total fish bill comes to about $700 million a year, Early said that's more than the cost of the entire BPA transmission system, but those costs lead into all the power agency's costs. He said Alcoa was working hard with BPA to get that overall number down, but he said his company was uncomfortable fixing any particular piece of the cost puzzle without knowing what the rest is going to be.
"We don't know what the answer is going to be in the BiOp," Early said. Until that's known, "we are loath to fix this piece of the puzzle."
Early questioned what was an appropriate amount to spend on fish and still meet the obligation of maintaining an economical power supply. "We don't see the particular advantage, and question whether it's even prudent at this point to lock down any piece of that cost combination."
Colville tribal spokesman Deb Louie outlined the upper Columbia tribes' dream of getting fish past Chief Joseph Dam, which now keeps salmon from getting farther up the Columbia River. Louie was animated in his description of the harm hydro projects had done to his homeland and admitted he was "getting kind of tired until these power people came up here and this refreshed me."
Upper Columbia United Tribes' spokesperson Mary Verner told the Council that mitigation for the region is long overdue. She said it was clear that if BPA's current F&W costs stay frozen in place, "equity" for the upper basin will not be achieved. She cataloged fish and habitat losses as well, and outlined the tribes' plan for a comprehensive mitigation program, but didn't mention costs. In other venues, the upriver tribes have called for annual BPA spending of $52 million for the next 10 or 15 years in the region.
Virgil Lewis Sr., vice chair of the Yakama Tribal Council, said fish and wildlife managers have been working very hard to develop costs for implementing subbasin plans and "will require a significant increase in BPA funding."
Lewis said a number of listed species were declining, but quick implementation of the plans had the lowest biological risk. He said a 10-year time frame was best.
"Implementing the subbasin plans will also provide thousands of jobs in rural and tribal communities in Eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana." He said that was an important issue for the tribes, where unemployment on the Yakama reservation has been cut to 40 percent from 70 percent.
But if BPA's F&W spending doesn't increase, he said the plans wouldn't even be completed within the next hundred years. "This is unacceptable to the Yakama Nation. It would mean the extinction of a number of salmon runs."
Lewis asked the Council to work with the tribe to review the draft F&W costs and the feasibility of implementing them over the next 10 years. He didn't say the tribe expected the total bill to add up to $3 billion, but he called on the Council to begin a formal amendment process to incorporate those plans in the fish and wildlife program. He said the Council should also tell BPA that it needs to provide adequate funding for the subbasin plans in the next rate case.
Lewis echoed the call for doubling Columbia Basin fish runs to five million salmon and asked the Council to be a party in the rate case. "We could use your help," he told members.
But Oregon fish and wildlife officials have objected to the draft cost estimates for subbasin planning because the approach included potential actions not necessarily supported by all the co-managers in each subbasin. "This is problematic for us because characterizing the document as a description of overall future costs implies each action is a necessary and fundamental component of subbasin plans," said a Feb. 10 letter to CBFWA chair Warren Seyler from Tony Nigro, ODFW program manager for ocean salmon and Columbia River. -Bill Rudolph
[2] OLD NMFS TOOL USED TO FAULT FEDS' 'OVER-OPTIMISTIC' TAKE ON FISH RUNS
Environmental and fishing groups challenging the new hydro BiOp (NWF v. NMFS) are using one of the federal government's own tools from the old BiOp to help make their case against the new one.
They claim the government's latest take on improving fish runs is too optimistic. The groups say if the feds had stuck with their old "lambda analysis," which estimates annual growth rates of different fish populations, and updated it through 2003, the results would have shown that the stocks are still in jeopardy, as the agency concluded in the 2000 BiOp.
In a memo filed earlier this month in Oregon District Court, this latest argument by plaintiff groups depends heavily on a new declaration by Oregon-based consultant Gretchen Oosterhout, who updated the lambda analysis federal scientists used in the 2000 BiOp, an approach that has since fallen by the wayside. Environmental groups have used Oosterhout's analyses since 2000, when she weighed in on a NMFS extinction exercise called the Cumulative Risk Initiative.
When the new BiOp was released in draft form last September, regional NOAA Fisheries administrator Bob Lohn said that large improvements in fish runs over the past few years led the agency to conclude that none of the listed stocks were in danger of going extinct in the near-term.
But the plaintiffs seriously disagree. "This is an especially serious flaw here because if NMFS had employed the methods and standards it used in the 2000 BiOp, it undoubtedly would have reached a jeopardy finding for the proposed action," said the Feb. 11 memo in support of their motion for summary judgment.
The original analysis was part of an ambitious attempt to estimate the annual growth of fish population needed to achieve jeopardy standards in the old BiOp: a 50-percent chance of reaching recovery in 48 years or a lambda of 1.0 (replacement) and a 5-percent extinction risk in 100 years. The feds found that offsite mitigation was needed to boost the stocks enough to get the dams off the hook for a non-jeopardy ruling. But Judge James Redden threw out the BiOp because the offsite actions weren't reasonably certain to occur.
The new BiOp has changed the playing field in several ways. It has reinterpreted the environmental baseline and updated the stock status to reflect improving fish numbers from improved ocean conditions and better dam survival.
But Oosterhout's recalculation claims that most stocks are still in trouble. Her analysis, which assumes that ocean conditions will be good for the next 43 years and survival improvements through the hydro system will be sustained, says three out of seven index stocks in the Snake River spring/summer chinook ESU would still need a 12 percent to 106 percent improvement in survival to avoid jeopardy.
However, stocks like Wenatchee chinook would still need up to a 183-percent improvement, according to her reckoning, and upper Columbia steelhead would need a 115 percent to 321 percent boost, while Snake River steelhead would need a 131 percent to 424 percent improvement.
Since ocean conditions aren't likely to remain that beneficial to salmon for that long, Oosterhout says total survival increases required to meet the 2000 standard "are substantially more than even the doubling to more than quintupling indicated by the current long-term trends of my revised calculations."
She said the stocks that need the most improvement are the ones that will get the smallest benefit from hydro measures, like the Wenatchee springers, which would still need about 80 percent of their survival increase to come from non-hydro measures like habitat improvement.
So how does that square with another recent review cited in the BiOp (Fisher and Hinrichsen, 2004) that shows a tenfold increase since 1990 in the upper Columbia spring chinook ESU that includes the Wenatchee stock? It reports that average returns since 2001 are only about 1,000 fish shy of NMFS' interim abundance target of 6,250 fish.
The Fisher and Hinrichsen review for BPA has tracked large upward trends in the status of most listed runs since 2000, a fact not lost on Oosterhout. She points out the Fisher and Hinrichsen report used a much shorter time frame (1990-2003) than the older BiOp, which began its analyses with data from 1980. This has led NMFS to conclude that most of the ESA stocks are at or above replacement levels and may tolerate additional short-term risk, she said.
Peaks and Troughs
But she adds that the feds' conclusions "are not scientifically accurate" because the Fisher and Hinrichsen review "does not actually capture changes to long-term population growth trends." She says the data starts in the trough of the 1990s and ends with a peak in returns that is due to the "apparent" climate regime shift around 1998-2000.
Oosterhout said that "a line fit through the longer period of data capturing a whole cycle will tend to capture more accurately the long-term population trend and thus the population risk this trend poses."
But a new trend analysis paid for by the Washington Farm Bureau says the long-term trend looks pretty positive, too. It will be part of an upcoming filing by the defendant-intervenor said farm bureau attorney Karen Budd-Falen.
Using data from 1980 through 2003 (in most cases), the January 2005 analysis by consultant Hinrichsen and University of Washington Professor Jim Anderson found that all wild stocks in the interior Columbia Basin have experienced growth, even excluding possible contributions from hatchery fish. Also, they found that the 2004 abundances of all stocks but the upper Columbia spring chinook are above their 20-year averages. They said growth rates up are from 9 percent to 28 percent above NMFS' own analysis that included data through 2001.
The Hinrichsen and Anderson analysis says that the 1990-2003 data better correlates with average historical ocean conditions in May, which is the peak month for ocean entry of spring chinook and steelhead, than with earlier data through 1980 when ocean conditions were warmer.
"Therefore," say the authors, "we suggest that the trend based on the interval 1990-2003 is a better representation of the future trends."
Both scientists had earlier expressed concerns about the lambda analyses used by NMFS in the 2000 BiOp and later. At a 2003 workshop, Anderson said the feds' model ignored ocean effects. Others were skeptical that anyone could predict long-term salmon runs.
But Earthjustice lawyers hope that Judge Redden doesn't see it that way. They say NMFS has no scientific basis for discarding tools it has previously identified as the "best, available science," and that the federal agency "has twisted the law and the science in knots to deny that the FCRPS [Federal Columbia River Power System] even presents a problem."
Justice Department attorneys are trying to quash Oosterhout's latest declaration and others submitted by Earthjustice. They say that the legal arguments must be confined to the Administrative Record submitted by NOAA Fisheries. -B. R.
[3] IRRIGATORS ADD NEW BLOOD TO BIOP LITIGATION
With the region on the verge of BiOp fatigue, a new legal twist may make this spring's legal proceedings a whole lot more interesting. Irrigator groups in Eastern Washington and Oregon are taking on the federal plan for operating the hydro system. They say the government is totally haywire trying to make up for the small changes in fish survival expected from proposed changes in dam operations while putting its stamp of approval on in-river fisheries that kill ten times as many fish.
While environmental groups and the federal government were trading memos in preparation for an April showdown over the new BiOp in front of Oregon District Court Judge James Redden, the irrigator groups filed a brief on Feb. 11 supporting a motion to have the 2004 BiOp tossed out. On March 1, Redden ordered that the new challenge be consolidated with the environmentalists' lawsuit.
The irrigator groups agree with the new BiOp's framework analysis that separates the dams' existence from their operation, still a major sticking point for enviros and fishing groups, who call the new analysis "a keystone legal flaw," with the feds' new baseline coming from a "hypertechnical and unprecedented parsing" of the ESA's definition of jeopardy.
But, in fact, James Buchal, attorney for the irrigator groups, argued for such an analysis 10 years ago when he represented Direct Service Industries, made up of the aluminum companies that used much of BPA's power in those days. The DSI group intervened in a lawsuit over the 1993 BiOp (IDFG v. NMFS) heard before Oregon District Court Judge Malcolm Marsh. Buchal argued that NMFS could only consult over dam operations that lay within the discretionary authority of the agencies responsible for running them.
Federal Flip-Flop
The federal government did not make such a distinction between existence and operations then, but it does in the latest BiOp, where feds even support Buchal's old point about the limits of discretionary authority. The new BiOp's analysis puts the existence of the dams and associated mortality in the analysis baseline. The analysis models the differences in fish mortality between a "reference" hydro operation theoretically maxed-out for fish benefits, and the operations proposed in the new BiOp, which are pretty much identical to how the mainstem projects have been run since 2000.
However, irrigators say hydro operations outlined in the new BiOp are still wrong because dam operators must offset all other sources of dam mortality to achieve the jeopardy standard. And they promise a future motion that will take issue with the feds' use of survival data that "arbitrarily overstates the effects" of the hydro system.
Buchal argues that the government's jeopardy standard is flawed because it adds the "expected future adverse effects" of unrelated actions like salmon harvest while assessing jeopardy. Buchal says this is unlawful because it's inconsistent with the law that says agency action is permitted unless its effects jeopardize the continued existence of the species.
The feds have erred, he says, because they added future "federally-regulated" harvests into the environmental baseline, hence, into the effects, even though future harvests had not been subject to consultation. Congress' intention was that each agency action should "stand on its own merits," and that agencies were not supposed to use one action (such as hydro operations) to "arbitrarily offset" the effects of others.
"We can be reasonably confident that is what is happening here," says Buchal's memo, based on the actions of NOAA Fisheries, which issued a "no-jeopardy" opinion for the harvest of several types of listed fish at take rates "an order of magnitude" (ten times) higher than from dam operations. In contrast, a short time earlier it had issued a preliminary draft biological opinion threatening to find that the Action Agencies' proposal jeopardized the continued existence of the same listed fish types.
Buchal's memo argues that the feds have erred by trying to embrace recovery planning in the context of a single agency action, when Section 4 of the ESA provides for a formal process for planning species recovery.
He says the adverse impacts to fish from dam operations are generally much smaller than harvest. Remembering that the feds are now estimating survival differences to fish between a "reference" dam operation that's maxed out for fish compared to those proposed in the BiOp, the 2 to 3 percent reduction in survival to Snake River fall chinook is paltry compared to the 31 percent harvest rate currently allowed in the river by a combination of non-Indian and tribal harvesters.
Buchal says future inriver harvest rates for spring chinook of 5 to 15 percent far outweighs impacts from the proposed operation, since adverse effects to the juvenile springers are estimated to be even less than to fall chinook.
The feds "must prepare a biological opinion on dam operations that does not put an enormous thumb on the jeopardy scales by requiring the Action Agencies to offset 31.29 percent harvest forever," Buchal writes in the memo.
With lower Columbia tribes accounting for two-thirds of that in-river harvest of fall chinook, it's possible that the irrigators' challenge may bring tribal fishing rights in direct conflict with ESA issues. This is a situation the Clinton administration studiously avoided, but privately acknowledged would be won by the ESA if it faced off against tribal treaty rights in court.
Buchal has already brought that up in a supplemental affidavit calling for his lawsuit to be assigned to another judge. He claims that Judge Redden's scientific advisor, retired Oregon State University fisheries professor Dr. Howard Horton, has given the judge access to pre-decisional processes that are not part of the administrative record.
By attending collaborative efforts between states, tribes and federal agencies before the latest round of filings, and by also advising another judge in the ongoing US v. Oregon process that is developing future harvest regimes for tribal fishermen, Buchal argues that Horton has given Redden "untold hours to educate the decisionmaker" while his clients will have only "extremely limited oral and written presentations."
If discussions about tribal fishing rights become enmeshed in the BiOp litigation, Judge Redden may have to step down. Last July, he told parties to the BiOp litigation he would have to share the bench with Judge Garr King, who oversees the secretive US v. Oregon process, if tribes sued to protect tribal fishing rights during last year's fight over reducing summer spill that took place in Redden's court.
Redden said he was statutorily prohibited from participating in US v. Oregon because he once represented the state of Oregon. Redden served as the state's attorney general from 1977 to 1980. In that ongoing process, the federal government is a plaintiff along with the four lower Columbia tribes and the Shoshone-Bannock.
Oregon District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty denied the irrigators' motion on March 2 to disqualify Redden. Haggerty said Redden's comments and discussion among parties at steering committee meetings "did not, as the Irrigators contend, amount to his prejudgment of the legal validity of the 2004 BiOp."
Haggerty also denied the contention that Dr. Horton's ex parte conversations with Redden will keep the irrigators from getting a fair hearing in his court.
On Mar. 3, Judge Redden ordered NOAA Fisheries to add 500 indexed federal documents, and possibly 300 more, to the Administrative Record, because NOAA Fisheries' regional administrator Bob Lohn stated in his declaration that some had been deliberately left out. Lohn told the Court they had been excluded because they contained information or opinions that were in documents already included in the record or did not form the basis for determinations in the BiOp. The judge also ordered 15 categories of documents withheld by the feds based on attorney-client privilege to be reviewed in camera by Judge King to determine if they should be protected from disclosure. -B. R.
[4] COLUMBIA RIVER INITIATIVE GOES ON HOLD
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire has asked the state Department of Ecology to suspend rulemaking on an initiative to revamp water rights law for Columbia River water users.
The initiative, which is trying to free up more water for both farmers and fish, was still in process last year. Draft legislation, written by Ecology staff, was left to the incoming legislature for passage, but it has garnered little support.
In a Feb. 24 letter to Ecology Director Linda Hoffman, Gregoire called the rulemaking premature, since no legislation has yet been passed dealing with the water issues. Until that happens, no final rulemaking can be adopted.
Gregoire said some legislators and other parties also say the rule is "premature" and shouldn't be completed until the legislature evaluates the proposed legislation and associated funding requests.
The proposed policy called for a $79 million fund to pay for water acquisitions over the next 10 years and to begin a move toward creating new off-channel storage.
It also included a provision for making up any future water withdrawals with an amount to be reserved for conservation purposes. For every acre-foot of water to be drawn from a mainstem account for new water uses, the proposed legislation called for half that amount to be "permanently retained in the account to improve stream flows."
New water users would also have to make up any stream flow reductions in the mainstem below Chief Joseph dam between April and August, which would effectively put 1.5 acre-feet back in the river for every 1 acre-foot taken out.
Irrigators had called it "no net loss, plus," and a worse solution than the "no net loss" water policy pushed for years by NOAA Fisheries' policymakers. They also criticized the state for attempting to create new water rights "out of thin air" from the unused portion reserved for the Columbia Basin project.
Darryll Olsen, water consultant and spokesman for the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association, said he wholeheartedly supported the governor's decision. After meeting with state Senator Erik Poulsen (D-West Seattle), who chairs the senate water, energy and environment committee, he said it was clear there was little enthusiasm among politicians for the draft bill. After the session, Olsen said stakeholders would try to work out a new water policy.
The irrigators association has supported a policy to improve efficiency of junior and new water rights holders, and would have holders of new rights pay the state $10/acre-ft. for new water, which could be used to fund efficiency programs or tribal fish enhancement programs. -B. R.
[5] DRY WINTER COULD LIMIT BPA REVENUES AND STREAM FLOWS, NOT POWER
Despite an unusually dry winter in the Northwest, the region should have no problems meeting its power needs this summer, according to a Northwest Power and Conservation Council report.
However, the current light snowpack and below-normal rainfall this season may take its toll on the Bonneville Power Administration's revenues, and limit stream-flow objectives set in the Endangered Species Act.
But any talk of rate increases, tardy Treasury payments or low-stream flows could all be washed away with a rainy spring. And most power managers and customers of BPA say they'll wait until the end of March, at least, before they start to worry.
The Power Council's Power Supply Outlook Update attributes the Northwest's 1500-MW power supply surplus as the crutch the region will lean on this summer.
It also helps that California has surplus capacity that could be exported, and that the snowpack in British Columbia is between 90 to 100 percent of normal.
So far this winter, the snowpack in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho is between 25 to 50 percent of normal. Combined with other below-normal snow levels throughout the Columbia Basin, the spring runoff is expected to be 82.4 million acre-feet at the Dalles. That's 77 percent of normal and assumes normal precipitation between now and the end of July.
If the dry weather continues and precipitation is only 75 percent of normal, runoff would be 71.6 MAF. That's low, but still not as low as 2001 when runoff bottomed out at 58 MAF, or in 1977 when run was just 54.6 MAF.
"The poor water conditions, however, likely will cause electricity prices to rise a little and BPA's revenues from spring and summer surplus sales are likely to be much lower than average," John Fazio, an analyst with the council told the council board.
Columbia Basin reservoirs should be at planned levels by the end of the summer, the report suggests. But ESA-mandated river flow objectives for the lower Snake and Columbia rivers "are not likely to be met because of the below-normal inflows at the reservoirs," the report says.
Ed Mosey, spokesman for BPA, told NW Fishletter that the agency had run an internal "probability analysis" on summer revenue forecast but it's too soon to worry.
"But it's still not specific enough to raise any alarm bells. We can say that we are probably going to fall well under our revenue projections, which means less revenue from California power sales," Mosey said. "But what that rate impact, if any, will be still remains to be seen."
It's premature to talk about rate adjustments, Mosey said, and the agency intends to honor its spill obligations in the BiOp.
Meanwhile, there's still hope for a "March Miracle," or at least a rainy spring. But the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center's seasonal outlook doesn't have a miracle in its forecast.
The center's latest prediction for March through May calls for above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation.
"Drought should persist from Washington and Oregon into Western Montana," according to the center's report. "Drought should also see little improvement across Southern Montana and Northern Wyoming. Seasonal rain and snow could provide limited drought relief across Central and Eastern Montana as well as Southern Wyoming, the Western Dakotas, and Western Nebraska." -Steve Ernst
[6] COST ESTIMATE DOUBLES FOR PROPOSED YAKIMA BASIN RESERVOIR
Estimated costs have doubled for a Yakima River Basin reservoir proposed to assure adequate water supply during dry years, and incidentally generate between 335 and 365 MW primarily for pumping, according to a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report summary released on Feb. 9.
The BOR's two-year "appraisal assessment" study said the project could cost from $3.5 billion to $4 billion. The costs were estimated to be about $1.9 billion in a reconnaissance-level study undertaken in 2002 by Benton County, Yakima County, the Benton County Farm Bureau and the Yakima County Farm Bureau.
The project would divert Columbia River water from Priest Rapids Lake into the reservoir and use it for irrigation, leaving water in the watershed to protect endangered fish. Among the power generation options are two 150-MW generators using the 3,500-cfs flow from the lake, a 23 MW or 38 MW power plant at the Black Rock outlet, and between 15-30 MW generated from the Sunnyside Canal.
The full study, released last Friday, focuses on geologic foundation and hydrological conditions, and didn't address economic, cultural or social impacts. Reclamation officials will meet with the state, Yakama Nation, and other stakeholders to determine if there should be any further study, with a decision expected by fall.
Further technical study was suggested on seismic hazards, and basin and rim leakage. A magnitude 6 to 7+ quake was thought possible in the reservoir's vicinity if the nearby Black Rock fault is active, although BOR engineers think the reservoir's dam could be built to withstand such an event.
Also, an impermeable basalt formation at a depth of 145 feet would serve as the reservoir base and could be vertically jointed and fractured, which could affect the regional groundwater if it allows leakage to reach the formations beneath the basalt. In addition, permeable formations likely to exist in the reservoir's rim rocks and dam abutments could also provide a shallow leakage path.
The report also considers water storage alternatives to Black Rock, including enlarging Bumping Lake, a new Wymer Dam and reservoir, and a pipeline between Kachess and Keechelus dams. -Rick Adair
Subscriptions and Feedback
Link/Document AnnexLINKS/DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 193:: Below are listed links and documents referred to in the text of NW Fishletter issue 193.
THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.
NW Fishletter is produced by Energy NewsData. Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
Phone: (206) 285-4848 Fax: (206) 281-8035
Contributing Editors: Bill Bakke and Jude Noland
Web Production: Michelle NoeIf you would like to be notified when the next NW Fishletter is published online, send an e-mail message to subscribe-fishletter@newsdata.com with your name and e-mail address in the body.
Please contact the Webmaster,
webmaster@newsdata.com,
with questions or comments on this site.
Copyright ©2004 Energy NewsData Corporation