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 state’s-