Take Down the 4 Major Klamath River Dams and Restore this Vital Watershed

Take Down the 4 Major Klamath River Dams and Restore this Vital Watershed

WHEREAS historically the Klamath River was the third most productive watershed on the West Coast for anadramous fish, with the salmon of the Klamath watershed being the focal point for the spiritual, cultural, and nutritional traditions of the three largest Indian tribes in California, the Yurok, the Karuk, and the Hupa, plus the Klamath watershed provided lots of native fish to the ocean to support once-thriving coastal fishing communities; and

WHEREAS PacifiCorp operates 4 major dams on the Klamath River which are basically worthless for flood control and for irrigation, and provide only a miniscule amount of power which led the California Energy Commission to call for the simultaneous removal of all 4 of the dams to maximize efficiency, while native fish have not inhabited the upper Klamath since the first dam was built in 1918, and there have been critical problems plaguing the Klamath River in terms of excessive water allotments in the Upper Klamath Basin which in 2002 resulted in deaths of 68,000 adult chinook salmon who went belly-up on the banks of the Klamath River, as well as the Klamath sometimes having too high a temperature to support salmonids but having an ideal temperature to help the toxic algae microcystis aeruginosa thrive in cesspools behind the dams; and

WHEREAS a comment period ended on December 1st, 2006, in which input was given to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding their decision about whether to renew a decades-long license to continue to operate the dams of the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, yet FERC refused to offer a "remove 4 dams" alternative in the Draft E.I.S. despite a mandate under the National Environmental Policy Act to offer a full range of alternatives and despite the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and all the legislators from the North Coast area urging that "remove 4 dams" be offered and chosen by FERC as the "preferred alternative" in order to alleviate the crisis facing native and fishing communities since the small salmon runs in the Klamath resulted in a shutdown of fishing along 700 miles of California and Oregon coastline in 2006 in order to not jeopardize the survival of the "evolutionarily significant" yet dwindling native fish of the Klamath River;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the California Democratic Council, meeting in convention in Los Angeles on August 10-12, 2007, urges not only that the four major dams on the Klamath River be removed in a manner which also addresses the toxic algae and to an extent the silt buildup behind the dams, but also calls for sound water management throughout the Klamath River watershed, natural and biologist-assisted native fish reintroduction to the upper watershed, plus priority funding for restoration activities in the Klamath watershed including for those which are not directly related to dam removal; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California Democratic Council urges Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, as well as other Democratic leadership and Congressmembers from California to call upon the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop and choose an alternative that calls for the removal of all four major dams on the Klamath River in the near future, while studying how to improve water management practices throughout the Klamath River watershed including those in the Upper Klamath Basin as well as on some tributaries to the Klamath River to help improve water quantity and quality in the river and wildlife refuges in order to support native species, indigenous communities, fishing communities, and those that recreate in the Klamath River.