WSP05794 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

002~J8 7 tiny fish. The committee voted against an exemption for the Tellico Dam, which was laler completed despite opposition when snail daners were found in other habitat. Soon thereafter, however, the ESC did exempt one project important to the Pick- Sloan region: Grayrocks Dam. On the Platte River in Wyoming, Grayrocks was to provide a source of cooling water for the Laramie River Station (LRS). Opponents of the project, including the National Wildlife Federation and the State of Nebraska, contended that construction of the dam would impound water required to maintain critical habital for the endangered whooping crane in Nebraska. In an unprecedented move, a federal judge in Nebraska enjoined the REA loan guarantee for LRS, and prohibited the Corps of Engi- neers from issuing the necessary 404 per- mit, effectively halting all work on the pro- jecl for months. Panicipants in the Missouri Basin Power Project (MBPPl received a stay of the federal court's injunction. Subsequent- ly, a negotiating team reached a settlement with the plaintiffs that created the Whoop- ing Crane Trost, funded through a contri- bUlion of more than $7 million from the MBPP. The Endangered Species Commit- tee voted an exemption for Grayrocks based on the setllement. Until this past summer, when the ESC voted to allow logging in certain areas of nalional forest thaI include habilat of the endangered northern spotted owl, the ESC had granted no exemption for any action since the Grayrocks case. Hydro Hurdles The Tellico Dam case foreshadowed some of the hurdles hydroeleclric projects would face in the future due to the ESA. Federal power customers throughout the country have felt the impact-and will probably feel it more intensely in the future-as the operations of hydroelectric facilities are further curtailed or altered in the interests of fish, birds and plants. Hydro operations are being blamed for fish kills, inundation of shore bird nests, destruction of habitat and rare plants, and changing the ecology of rivers so that entire species are endangered and other types of fish predominate. In the Pacific Northwest, severnl vari- In detennining whether to list a species, the Secretary is specifically prohibited from considering the possible economic effects of such a listing; the designation is required to be based entirely on the best available scientific data. eties of salmon have been listed and their recovery plans focus largely on changes in the operntion of Bonneville Power Admin- istration and other dams. Despite the installation of fish ladders to help salmon reach their spawning grounds, and other efforts to minimize affects on the fish pop- ulations in the Columbia Basin, BPA is under continuing pressure to change opera- tions at its hydroelectric facilities. There is no doubt that salmon runs are down significantly from previous years, . when as many as 16 million wild salmon would return to their spawning grounds in the Columbia River basin. Now, a run may number just two million fish. Dams do introduce major obstacles to the movement of fish populations in rivers. But BPA cus- tomers say recovery plans for Northwest salmon do not provide a broad enough view of the many factors that can affect salmon, such as open-ocean harvesting of fish by other nations, and they fear that after a decade in which BPA has spent approximately $1 billion on fish and wildlife, they will be targeted to pay the bill for recovery plans that may not work. Consequently, the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC), the Pub- lic Power Council and others have inter- vened in lawsuits challenging the North- west Power Planning Council's fish and wildlife plan, and have filed a Notice of Intent to sue NMFS, BPA and other agen- cies over recovery plans for salmon. PNGC contends that the federn! agencies have nol taken adequate steps to consider commercial harvesting, hatchery opera- tions and habitat management in the plans they have developed, and that they should consider the salmon's entire life cycle and all causes of fish kills. In Pick-Sloan, the operations of the Missouri mainstem dams muSl be altered during the summer months to avoid destroying Ihe nests of the endangered pip- ing plover and interior least tern, which . nest on the river's sandbars and banks. To try to protect the birds withoUl completely compromising releases for other project purposes, including power generation, the Corps of Engineers increases releases every third day during the early pan ofthe nesting season to encourage the birds to nest al higher levels. Then, when water must be released, the high river stages won't inundate and destroy the nests. The operational changes have reduced power production by about 140 megawatts on the Pick-Sloan mainstem system. Also listed in the Pick-Sloan region is continued on ptlge 6 ~ ~ I Mid-West Reporter Fall 1992