My vote is for rolling blackouts. (during working hours, of course!)
Powerful choice: Salmon or electricity?
03/08/2001
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore.–The acting chief of the Bonneville Power Administration told regional energy planners Wednesday that continuing dry weather means emergency measures probably will be needed to ensure the Northwest has enough hydroelectricity this summer–at the expense of federal salmon recovery programs.
Steven Wright told the Northwest Power Planning Council that near record-low runoff from mountain snowpacks is expected, forcing the BPA to curtail some of its salmon programs in order to meet electricity demand and debt payments to the U.S. Treasury.
Power production at federal dams is limited by a salmon protection plan which calls for water to be held in storage reservoirs for release during spring and summer fish migrations.
The plan also calls for some water to be sent through spillways instead of turbines to provide a safer way for young salmon to get past dams on their way downriver to the ocean.
But those measures reduce power generating capacity by 10 percent.
Wright said Bonneville likely will have to reduce the amount of water sent through spillways this summer.
"If we get this incredibly low volume, we would have difficulty carrying out even a limited program," he said.
Bonneville officials estimate that, by September, there will be nearly a 50 percent chance the federal power marketing agency will be unable to meet its cash needs if it spills water for fish rather than use it for electricity.
"You really don't want a 50 percent chance of meeting your mortgage," Wright said.
A representative from the National Marine Fisheries Service–which designed the fish recovery plan–said reducing spills would certainly harm salmon.
"If we reduce spill, we reduce survival," said Brian Brown, the director of the NMFS hydropower program. "How much is something we have to calculate and have not done yet."
Brown said the drought-like conditions have not forced the fisheries agency to rethink its recovery plan.
"This is the worst year on record," Brown said, "and we're not going to plan for the worst year on record."
Brown and other officials said spillways do not save large numbers of salmon, and some members of the planning council seemed skeptical that it would be worth rolling blackouts.
"I don't think the people of this Northwest want to have blackouts where you could have the death of people because they don't have their homes heated," Leo Giacometto, a Montana representatives on the four-state council, said during a break in the meeting.
"For $1.6 billion, 160 fish saved," he said. "Those are awfully expensive fish."
Dick Watson, director of power council's planning division, told council members it would take a combination of spill reduction, reduced reservoirs and imported energy to meet consumer demand, maintain some salmon-related programs and, perhaps, save some water for a sunny day.
Since last winter, the wholesale price of electricity has increased from about $25 per megawatt hour to more than 10 times that figure. Importing electricity to make up for a shortfall of hydro power would be extremely costly.
The council–which represents Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington–also discussed the bleak possibility that Northwesterners could take tough conservation measures, lose salmon and still find their hard-earned energy reserves go toward helping California.
"If we reserve water to refill reservoirs to meet fish and power needs later on and then we lose those benefits because of an emergency in California, that's going to be a difficult reality for folks in the Northwest," said Eric Bloch, an Oregon representative.
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