Dam relicensing offers chance to reestablish salmon runs

Portland General Electric has launched efforts to acquire a new license for its 408,000 kilowatt, three-dam Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project located on the Deschutes River about seven miles northwest of Madras. The current project license expires Dec. 31, 2001.

The company will hold a public meeting on Thursday, September 12, at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, 430 SW Fairgrounds Rd., Madras in the Maccie Conroy building, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. PGE will also offer a site visit of the project on Friday, September 13.

Those attending the meeting will have a chance to comment on the ICD, which details the project's benefits and impacts, and the program for relicensing the Pelton Round Butte project. It also details project fisheries, wildlife,

recreational, and cultural resources and summarizes project history, operations, and environmental impacts. It also provides information on the need for power, project economics, and possible alternatives for project operations.

As part of the relicensing plan, PGE hopes to re- establish anadromous fish (fish that go out to sea and return to spawn) above the project into Lake Billy Chinook and its tributaries -- the Deschutes, Crooked and Metolius rivers.

The project began operating nearly four decades ago and initially included extensive facilities for passage of fish up and downstream over the project. After an evaluation period, a multi- agency steering committee decided to discontinue fish passage attempts at the project in favor of fish hatchery operations, which continue today.

"The hatchery has had positive results," said PGE's Don Ratliff, an aquatic biologist at Pelton Round Butte, "but we've made a long- term commitment to bring back anadromous fish above the project.

"Through the relicensing process, we'll develop a research program in cooperation with state and federal agencies, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and other interested parties to address the issues and challenges of fish passage," he said. "If we find that it makes sense to reestablish runs of naturally spawning salmon and steelhead, then we'll do our best to make it happen."