Clinton To Create Salmon Fund Federal Money To Limit Costs To Utility Customers
The Clinton administration agreed Tuesday to create a federally financed emergency fund to limit how much Northwest electric utility customers must contribute to efforts to save the region’s salmon.
Signed by three members of President Clinton’s cabinet and nearly a year in the making, the agreement also ensures Northwest states and Indian tribes will have a say in salmon restoration efforts.
The $325 million federal fund will provide money to protect dwindling salmon runs when drought, natural disasters or court orders put too much strain on the many users of the Snake and Columbia rivers, from electric ratepayers and aluminum producers to shippers and irrigation farmers.
Under the six-year agreement, the Bonneville Power Administration, the region’s largest power wholesaler, would pass on to its customers a maximum of $435 million in annual costs related to fish and wildlife.
About $252 million would be in the form of actual capital improvements to help salmon with dam modifications, fish ladders, fish screens and other devices. The other $183 million is what BPA anticipates it would lose by spilling water around dams and changing the flow of water that otherwise would be used to produce electricity.
Tribal leaders and Northwest lawmakers praised the deal, announced as Clinton and Vice President Al Gore prepared for a campaign swing through Oregon and Washington today and Thursday.
Environmentalists said the agreement won’t provide enough protection for salmon partly because it excludes a proposed lowering of water levels at the John Day reservoir, which they say is needed to help flush young migrating fish to sea.
“This agreement still harms salmon and steelhead,” said Tim Stearns of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Seattle.
The Columbia River Alliance, a coalition of utilities and industrial river users, also criticized the deal, saying it gives too much authority to the states and tribes.
“It continues to be a major disappointment that the people paying the bills are not involved in the salmon recovery process,” said Bruce Lovelin, the alliance’s director.
Government plans to save the fish focus in large part on altering dam operations to return the river to a more natural state with faster water flows, often at a heavy cost to production of hydropower.
“It includes innovative provisions to provide the people of the Pacific Northwest a greater say in fisheries management,” Gore said in a statement issued by the White House.
Electric ratepayers in the region still will shoulder the bulk of the burden of restoring salmon runs in the Northwest, said Doug Hall, assistant commerce secretary for oceans and atmosphere. But “we have a national commitment to this resource. It is a national resource.”
Gore and Northwest lawmakers first announced the proposed fish spending cap last October. But negotiations on a formal memorandum of understanding outlining the agreement stalled under various objections from environmental groups, river users, tribes and state officials.
Under the agreement, federal agencies will be required to consult with the region’s tribes as well as Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana state governments before proceeding with salmon recovery efforts.
Ted Strong, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland, Ore., said the agreement is an important step toward reversing damage caused by construction of the dams more than a half century ago.
“Our tribes are hopeful that, with leadership, good will and a common goal among our governments, we can change the status quo for the benefit of all residents of the Columbia Basin,” he said.