HYDRO-ELECTRICITY
III. E. 289 Draft Statewide Strategy to Recover Salmon Volume
2 Hydropower and Fish: Pursuing Opportunities III. E. HYDROPOWER AND FISH:
PURSUING OPPORTUNITIES
I. Current Situation: Where are we now?
A. Overview of Problem Hydropower dams and facilities have had
a profound negative impact on river systems and on anadromous fish. Hydropower
dams constructed several years ago were built with little or no consideration
for protecting river ecosystems and fish and wildlife resources. Diversions
and impoundment of rivers by hydropower dams have dramatically altered
flows and riparian habitat for a large number of rivers and streams. Dams
have modified level, timing, frequency and duration of stream flows. They
have blocked the movement of fish both upstream and downstream, de-watered
stream segments below dams, caused loss of upstream habitat, and increased
predation in reservoirs. Dams have also reduced water quality by altering
water temperature and decreasing oxygen levels. There are, unfortunately,
no simple fixes and there is considerable resistance to fixes of hydropower
projects that would reduce power production.
The example of the Columbia-Snake River system (includes the dams
and hydropower facilities above Bonneville dam) best illustrates the impact
of hydropower on salmon and the difficulty of addressing these impacts.
The system was once host to salmon and steelhead populations numbering
10 16 million fish. For multiple reasons, many of these salmon and steelhead
runs have been severely depleted or eliminated, but a significant factor
is the Columbia-Snake hydroelectric system. As many as nine major dams
block or impede the progress of fish on their way to and from the Pacific
Ocean. And thousands of square miles of salmon habitat have been inundated
by the reservoirs behind the dams.
B. Current Applicable Policies for Fish Protection, Mitigation,
and Restoration Congress, in enacting several laws specific to hydropower,
has determined that some basic environmental protection must be afforded
at every dam, and should not be balanced away to promote hydropower.
- Pursuant to Section 10(j) of the Federal Power Act, as amended
by the Electric Consumers Protection Act, state and federal resource agencies
(e.g. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife and NMFS) may recommend that certain fish and wildlife protection
measures are included in a new license. FERC is required to give these
recommendations due consideration and must adopt them unless FERC finds
them inconsistent with the Federal Power Act. FERC is required to hold
a dispute resolution meeting to resolve disagreements between the resource
agencies and FERC.
- Under Section 10(a) of the Federal Power Act, FERC must give
equal consideration to power and non-power values. In doing so, FERC
must consider the extent to which a project would be best adapted to a
comprehensive plan for developing a waterway. FERC need not act consistently
with a comprehensive plan, but must justify a decision not to. The states-