[7] Power Council Pans Corps' Proposal For $30 Million Flood Control Review

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has penned a letter to the Corps of Engineers saying the agency should put a hold on an ambitious flood control review until the region sorts out important issues about the value of flow augmentation for fish.

"As presented," said the Council letter, "the $30 million study would be extremely expensive and would have no demonstrable benefits for fish and wildlife." The Council also said that ratepayers should not be saddled with any costs associated with the review.

The Council noted that a 1997 study by the Corps had already addressed many of the issues in the new proposal.

A draft report released in January, when the Corps called for public comments, said there was a federal interest in pursuing a feasibility study. The report also contained an alternative plan that could provide acceptable levels of flood control, fisheries benefits, and be "environmentally acceptable."

But such an alternative would change systemwide storage control, and calls for upgrading or removing levees, along with redefining "acceptable levels of damage reduction."

According to the study's executive summary, its objectives are based on Congressional language and supplemental language used in the 2000 hydro BiOp that calls for looking at ways to reduce the effects of flood control operations on the spring freshet. The language calls for focusing on years of average and below-average runoff, so that spring and summer flow objectives in the Snake and Columbia rivers could be met more often.

The council suggested that the Corps should cut the review's costs, and emphasize flood control.

Other groups have "vigorously" opposed the study altogether. In a March 10 letter to the Corps, Northwest Requirements Utilities' executive director John Saven pointed out that even BiOp Judge James Redden recognized the uncertain benefits of flow augmentation.

Saven said if the expensive study went forward, it would short-change other more important fish-related projects. He said support for it by other agencies and the public was "questionable," at best. -B. R.

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