Balance must be found between salmon recovery, electricity costs

[Washington Hunter]

Published July 09, 2006

Panel: Balance must be found between salmon recovery, electricity costs

BY SHANNON DININNY

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PASCO, Wash. - The federal government must find a balance between rising electricity costs, which hurt schools, farmers and low-income residents, and spending for salmon recovery in the Columbia and Snake river basins, a panel of groups from Washington, Oregon and Idaho said.

Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., invited representatives of 11 groups and federal agencies to speak Friday at the congressional field hearing of the U.S. House subcommittee on water and power. McMorris has proposed legislation that would require the Bonneville Power Administration to include in its monthly bills to utility customers a list of costs associated with complying with the Endangered Species Act.

The hearing was intended to seek a balance between providing reliable, affordable electricity for consumers and protecting endangered salmon with a balanced and reasonable approach, McMorris said.

Ron Reimann, owner of T&R Farms in Pasco, said he has installed special pumps and pivots and uses computers to control and reduce his water use. Still, his power rates have increased 81 percent since 2001.

Washington already has high unemployment insurance costs, high regulatory costs and high workers compensation benefits, said Gary Chandler, vice president of governmental affairs for the Association of Washington Business.

But blaming salmon recovery efforts for the cost of heating homes is unfair, said Rebecca Miles, chairwoman of Idaho's Nez Perce tribe and a commissioner of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

"I ask you to consider salmon recovery as an investment and not just a cost," she said. "Today, what we need for salmon, and what rural economies need in terms of energy costs is the same thing: certainty."

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©2006 The Olympian

 

[JoseCuervo]

\.

Ron Reimann, owner of T&R Farms in Pasco, said he has installed special pumps and pivots and uses computers to control and reduce his water use. Still, his power rates have increased 81 percent since 2001.

Washington already has high unemployment insurance costs, high regulatory costs and high workers compensation benefits, said Gary Chandler, vice president of governmental affairs for the Association of Washington Business.

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Wh,
No offense intended, but this is a stupid article that doesn't discuss the panel or the discussions.

What does high unemployment insurance have to do with salmon? How do salmon affect the cost of workers compensation benefits??

 

[Washington Hunter]

No offense taken. I only posted it so you could critique it. I do agree it is a "stupid" article. But, better a stupid article than no article at all. It's been pretty slow in here lately.

 

[JoseCuervo]

This is a bit better article on the same meeting. It looks like the panel meeting was a disguise for anti-fishing/anti-hunting groups to get the GOP to continue on the anti-fishing and anti-hunting crusade that Dubya has led the party toward.

Some blame power rates on salmon

Published Saturday, July 8th, 2006

By Andrew Sirocchi, Herald staff writer

A Pasco school board member at a Congressional field hearing Friday worried about keeping the lights on in schools if salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia River continue to drive up power rates.

A representative of a Spokane charitable agency conceived a host of social ills being provoked if the working poor can't afford rising electric bills because of fish enhancements.

And the owner of a family farm wondered how he could continue operating when his profit margins keep being eaten up by the rising costs of restoring threatened and endangered Columbia and Snake river fish.

"The fact we are still here is surprising not only to us but also to our banker," said Ron Reimann, owner of T&R Farms in Pasco. "I am just as important as a fish, and I can damn well tell you my 3-year-old granddaughter is much more important."


Reimann was part of an 11-witness panel that met Friday with members of the House Water and Power Subcommittee in Pasco to discuss the effects of salmon recovery efforts.

Other panelists were with the Bonneville Power Administration, federal agencies, as well as environmental and tribal groups, who spoke to Reps. Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris, both Republican members of the subcommittee.

While the Northwest continues to enjoy some of the lowest power rates in the nation, business and farm representatives warned of a fish policy they believe threatens the Northwest's economic future and of continuous legal battles with environmental groups that are creating too much uncertainty for investors to do business in Washington.

"Just to illustrate how massive the recovery efforts are, if the water being spilled over dams to assist in fish passage was used instead to generate power, it would be enough to meet the city of Seattle's annual electric energy needs," Stephen J. Wright, BPA administrator and chief executive officer.

"And spill is just one of the many measures we are taking to assist salmon recovery. BPA ratepayers pay most of those costs through their power bills," he said.

Wright said a judicial order to spill more water for Columbia River salmon recovery last summer cost Northwest ratepayers $75 million in lost hydropower but a bill that would direct BPA to include those "lost" revenues as part of the cost of saving endangered fish drew criticism from tribes and environmental representatives.

While no one questioned that BPA has invested billions in salmon recovery efforts such as fish ladders, habitat improvements and spillways, environmental groups and tribes objected to tallying the unrealized hydropower as part of the cost of recovery.

"No agency should be allowed to convert potential revenue to a loss," said Rebecca Miles, commissioner with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland.

Miles added a request that groups start looking at salmon recovery "as an investment and not as a loss."

The Endangered Species Compliance and Transparency Cost Act, proposed by McMorris and co-sponsored by Hastings, would direct power marketing groups such as the BPA to include how much it costs for them to comply with the ESA and how much they lose from water that isn't used for power generation.

The act received wide support from business and power representatives but Nancy Hirsh, policy director of the NW Energy Coalition, said singling out fish recovery efforts as the reason for increasing power costs is misleading and shows a bias against fish recovery.

Hirsh said BPA could just as well stop giving sweetheart deals to aluminum plants to keep power rates down.

"Blaming salmon recovery for the increased cost is unfair," she said. "We support transparency ... but as written, this legislation has short comings," she said.

Solutions to the struggle of balancing power and fish needs for all the competing interested groups remained few although all the parties represented Friday said they felt everyone would have to work together to come up with an answer.

Hastings said in his opening statements the government may have to rethink its harvest policy for threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead.

"Salmon is the only endangered critter used for human consumption," he said after the three-hour meeting. "We are focusing all of our efforts on the habitat side and in the end we're still harvesting an endangered fish."

Commercial fishing groups were not represented at the meeting, although the West Coast fleet has faced sharp reductions and some have had particularly difficult years, in part, because of restrictions on salmon fishing and other endangered species.

McMorris, who co-chairs the water and power subcommittee, said on this side of the mountains, finding a balance between fish and power means protecting endangered salmon but recognizing that the Columbia and Snake rivers have a major economic purpose as well.

"The ESA is upfront and personal here in Eastern Washington -- and our farmers and electricity consumers are paying for it," she said.

 

[JoseCuervo]

WH, do you subscribe to a newspaper written in Crayon? How come they edited the original article by Dinny into something that was nonsense?

The "panel" make-up and meeting is interesting.... More about the anti-hunting/fishing GOP.

Power users, salmon advocates square off again in hearing

By SHANNON DININNY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PASCO, Wash. -- The federal government must find a balance between rising electricity costs, which hurt schools, farmers and low-income residents, and spending for salmon recovery in the Columbia and Snake river basins, a panel of groups from Washington, Oregon and Idaho said Friday.

Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., invited representatives of 11 groups and federal agencies to speak at the congressional field hearing of the U.S. House subcommittee on water and power. McMorris has proposed legislation that would require the Bonneville Power Administration to include in its monthly bills to utility customers a list of costs associated with complying with the Endangered Species Act.

The hearing was intended to seek a balance between providing reliable, affordable electricity for consumers and protecting endangered salmon with a balanced and reasonable approach, McMorris said.

"Often times, the Endangered Species Act is being used as a tool to drive up costs for our electricity consumers," she said. "No one disagrees with protecting truly endangered species, but the ESA has been misinterpreted and stretched to put species before people."

Ron Reimann, owner of T&R Farms in Pasco, said he has installed special pumps and pivots and uses computers to control and reduce his water use. Still, his power rates have increased 81 percent since 2001.

"The fact that we are still here is amazing to us, not to mention our bankers," he said. "Spilling water to flush fish downstream is senseless. I'm just as important as a fish."



Washington already has high unemployment insurance costs, high regulatory costs and high workers compensation benefits, said Gary Chandler, vice president of governmental affairs for the Association of Washington Business.

"Historically, our low power rates have made up for that. We used to have a real advantage over other states because of our low-cost hydropower. But that advantage is slipping away," he said.

The Bonneville Power Administration provides 40 percent of the region's power, with 90 percent of that coming from hydropower dams that have been blamed for declining salmon returns on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The dams provide the Northwest with some of the country's lowest electricity rates - Idaho and Washington rank among the top five states for low rates, while Montana and Oregon are tied for 12th.

In the past 20 years, Bonneville has spent $7.8 billion on fish and wildlife mitigation efforts, said Steven Wright, BPA administrator and chief executive officer. Those efforts include measures to improve salmon passage through the dams for both adult and juvenile salmon.

"We have achieved notable successes and urge more attention on the efforts for recovery. The results of the last few years are very encouraging," Wright said. At the same time, he said, "We have now picked the 'low hanging fruit' for hydrosystem operations impacts and we are reaching a point of diminishing returns for additional hydrosystem operations and improvements."

The federal government needs to ensure those costs achieve demonstrable results, said Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, a nonprofit coalition of river users that includes agricultural interests, utilities, industries and ports.

"We want to ensure that what is being spent is well spent. We are about accountability," she said. "If we are to truly solve the problem long term, we must ensure that our dollars are being invested in those measures that will provide real benefits."

But blaming salmon recovery efforts for the cost of heating homes is unfair, said Rebecca Miles, chairwoman of Idaho's Nez Perce tribe and a commissioner of the Portland, Ore.-based Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Four Columbia River tribes - the Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla and Nez Perce - created the commission nearly three decades ago to help the tribes enforce fishing regulations and protect treaty fishing rights, habitat and ensure conservation.

Such statements overlook many factors that contribute to the cost of electricity, Miles said.

"I ask you to consider salmon recovery as an investment and not just a cost," she said. "Today, what we need for salmon, and what rural economies need in terms of energy costs is the same thing: certainty."

In 2007, BPA expects to spend $338 million for fish and wildlife projects. The agency labels another $357 million as salmon recovery expense, though that money is in the form of revenue that could be earned if water were not spilled over the dams to aid fish.

By contrast, the agency will spend $847 million in 2007 in debt costs associated with building dams and nuclear plants, including plants planned but never completed as part of the former Washington Public Power Supply System.

Operating costs for dams and power plants for 2007 have been estimated at $479 million.

After the hearing, Miles noted her disappointment about the list of invited speakers.

Of 11 invited speakers, seven supported efforts to reduce electricity rates or McMorris' bill to make Endangered Species Act costs transparent to consumers on their power bills. Just two speakers supported increasing efforts on behalf of endangered fish, while two government agencies took no position.

The list "doesn't seem to include conservationists and it doesn't seem to include recreationists," said Paula Del Giudice, director of the National Wildlife Federation's Western office in Seattle, who was not invited to speak. "We just want to see fish given equal consideration."

 

[Washington Hunter]

The newspaper is "The Olympian," and usually they are very thorough on anything resembling an environmental issue. They really f'ed up that one though, I agree.

 

[Ten Bears]

I agree with the title of the first article, but that's about it.