Northwest Newspaper Hydropower Articles

Klickitat PUD seeks to buy Condit Dam

By KATHIE DURBIN
The Columbian

The Klickitat Public Utility District has told Portland-based PacifiCorp that it wants to buy the utility's Condit Dam Hydroelectric Project and is prepared to acquire the dam and its electrical generating facilities through condemnation. The small Goldendale-based utility's threat could throw a monkey wrench into PacifiCorp's plan to remove the 93-year-old dam from the White Salmon River in 2008.

KPUD General Manager Tom Svendsen notified PacifiCorp official Gail Miller in late June of the utility's intentions. "KPUD is prepared to negotiate a resolution of this matter," Svendsen wrote. "However, should PacifiCorp reject this opportunity, KPUD, acting in the public interest, will use its power of eminent domain to acquire the project for public use. In conformity with the Washington State Constitution and laws, KPUD attorneys will file a condemnation suit and a trial will be arranged to determine the just compensation to be paid for the project."

"We met with them," Svendsen said in an interview. "They are unwilling to talk to us. They are committed to removing the dam. (Klickitat) County's attorneys have advised us that we do have the power to use eminent domain."

Investor-owned PacifiCorp has applied for a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to remove Condit Dam rather than invest in expensive fish-passage facilities FERC would require as a condition of relicensing the aging structure.

If the permit is granted, 125-foot-high Condit would become the highest dam ever dismantled in the United States. Its removal would open the river's upper reach to salmon runs for the first time since 1913.

Environmental groups that signed a settlement agreement supporting the utility's $20 million dam-removal plan say the project would set an important precedent, possibly paving the way for removal of other dams, including two Elwha River dams on the Olympic Peninsula.

'Twists in the case' PacifiCorp spokesman Dave Kvamme chose his words carefully in commenting on the Klickitat PUD notice.

"We have not developed a response to this letter yet," he said. "We haven't received an offer for the project. No one has begun condemnation procedures. We are on the path to implement the settlement agreement."

Asked whether PacifiCorp is concerned about the threat, Kvamme said, "There appears to be a conflict between state rights and the jurisdiction of a federal entity. They may very well have the right to use their power of eminent domain. This is one of those twists in the case.

"We're looking for an outcome that protects the interests of our customers," Kvamme added. "That is what the settlement agreement calls for."

Andrew Fahlund, vice president for conservation at the environmental group American Rivers, said the condemnation threat amounted to posturing.

"The Klickitat PUD is doing their customers a great disservice by even pursuing this," he said. "It would be like Microsoft going after a typewriter company. They are going after something that is antiquated and run down. ? The future for Klickitat County is in a restored White Salmon River and not in some decrepit old hunk of concrete that no longer serves a useful purpose."

The PUD condemnation threat is the latest tactic by officials in Klickitat and Skamania counties to prevent the dam's removal and preserve the popular reservoir behind it. Both counties have filed as intervenors in the FERC dam-removal permit. With revenue from the Roosevelt Landfill, Klickitat County has retained attorneys expert on federal dam relicensing law to fight the project.

Svendsen admitted that Klickitat County is driving the PUD's strategy and that the utility, which serves 11,000 customers, has no immediate use for the power the dam generates. The county's real purpose, he said, is to preserve Condit Dam.

"We're just trying to save it for the region," he said.

Two studies A 2002 study commissioned for the PUD by an environmental and engineering consulting firm found that the Condit project would not be cost-effective for the PUD because FERC would require the utility to provide expensive fish passage around the dam and other modifications as a condition of relicensing.

The CH2M Hill study found that a successful takeover of the Condit project complete with fish ladders would cost the utility $63.5 million. Paying back the bonds sold to finance the project and actually operating the dam would drive the cost of power above 9 cents per kilowatt hour, far more than the cost of producing power from other sources, the study found.

For Condit Dam power to be competitive with the power from a new natural gas-fired plant, CH2M Hill concluded, the total cost would have to be kept to $32 million.

After receiving that study, the PUD put its plan for acquiring the dam on hold, Svendsen said. "The county commissioners had asked us to look at it," he said. "We concluded it was uneconomical. They came to us again and said would you please look at it one more time. We found a different consultant and came up with an idea that we think has merit."

That idea, floated in a new study for the PUD by Seattle-based Wescorp Consulting Engineers, is that FERC might be willing to consider a trap-and-haul proposal for fish on the White Salmon River.

The proposal would involve trucking spawning salmon around the dam. It could be done for $24 million, Wescorp said, significantly less than the $44 million required to install fish ladders.

FERC rejected a trap-and-haul program when PacifiCorp proposed it in the 1990s. But Wescorp consultants said the agency might be willing to take another look at it under new language contained in the Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Fahlund of American Rivers said the act does set a higher bar for federal agencies to meet in requiring fish-passage facilities around dams. But that doesn't mean the Klickitat PUD could easily convince FERC that a trap-and-haul program would be an adequate substitute for fish ladders at Condit Dam, Fahlund said.

"The law says an agency must include conditions that are no less protective of the resource," he said. "By that measure alone, they would lose. Any proposal to operate trap-and-haul is not going to be as protective as the fish passage" that FERC earlier prescribed for Condit Dam.

Update Previously: Klickitat and Skamania counties launched a legal challenge of PacifiCorp's plan to remove 93-year-old Condit Dam. What's new: The Klickitat Public Utility District has notified PacifiCorp that it will acquire the dam through condemnation if the company refuses to negotiate a price. What's next: PacifiCorp says it will proceed with seeking a federal permit to remove the dam in 2008.

The Columbian
Vancouver, WA
July 20, 2006

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