Northwest Newspaper Hydropower Articles

Tribe seeks $950 million for Wells Dam impact

Tribe seeks compensation

By Bill Stevenson
The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle

EAST WENATCHEE - The Colville Confederated Tribes are seeking $950 million from Douglas County PUD for flooding land bordering the Columbia River with Wells Dam.

"If there's money paid to the tribe, the cost would be borne by the project and thus borne by the people involved with the project which would be in the end the customers," said PUD general manager Bill Dobbins.

Okanogan County receives 18 percent of the power generated by Wells Dam at cost and owns part of the project.

If the tribe's action ends up with a payout to the tribe, then Okanogan ratepayers would be impacted by higher electricity rates, he said.

"I like to hold costs down. That is my mission in life," Dobbins said. "That's our mission, low-cost, reliable service."

The tribe presented reports to the PUD at a meeting and sought compensation for Wells Dam flooding traditional tribal fishing lands.

The action is similar to .a suit brought against the federal government over Grand Coulee Dam. That suit resulted in a 1994 decision involving $21 million annual payments from the Bonneville Power Administration.

Joe Pakootas, chairman of the Colville Business Council, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Consultants for the tribe determined Douglas County PUD owes the tribe $950 million and payments of $18 million per year for flooding 3,186 acres of reservation land, said Dobbins.

"We need to determine if the facts support the numbers, and our belief is that they do not," -Dobbins said. "We own that land, just like you own the land under your house."

Dobbins said the PUD bought the land flooded and surrounded by the dam reservoir, which is 11,726 acres. He said PUD officials believe the problem lies with actual ownership of the 1,330 acres of river.

Once surrounding land was bought, the state granted permission to overflow the river, he explained.

"In the middle 1960's, the state decided on the middle of the river.

The rights to the riverbed were never clarified," said Dobbins.

"That is the goal of the Colvilles right now, to clarify the right."

Dobbins said the legal question is over who owns the bed of the river.

To determine the amount of money the tribe claims the PUD owes, tribal consultants asserted if the dam wasn't built, the demand for power would be the same but generated differently. Dobbins said they compared the costs of operating a steam plant in Centralia.

"The economic assumption is a utility would be willing to pay some price for power," said Dobbins.

The tribe is seeking a portion of the difference in cost of generating power with a hydro-electrical plant and a steam plant since the dam was built in 1967, about 35 years ago, said Dobbins.

The PUD is doing economic research before meeting with the tribe, Dobbins said. PUD officials are looking at negotiating after a set of facts agreed upon by both. If negotiations fail, then the PUD would wait for any legal action the tribe might take.

"We are hopeful that we maintain our positive relationship with the Colvilles," said Dobbins. "We are going to be straight up with them and be professional. It is important to us. They are a big neighbor of the Wells project."

The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle
Omak, WA
February 12, 2003

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