Report: Removing Klamath dams would help fish, provide jobs, cost millions

The ambitious proposal to remove four Klamath River dams would add jobs and aid fish, a new federal report asserts, but the idea still leaves California lawmakers badly divided. As they approach a make-or-break decision on whether to recommend the dam removal, U.S. Interior Department officials on Tuesday touted anticipated benefits that include improved salmon habitat and 1,400 construction jobs during the year it would take to remove the hydroelectric dams. Long-term Klamath Basin restoration efforts would add an estimated 4,600 jobs, the report says. But the dam removals would also cost somewhere between $238 million and $493 million, potentially increase flooding risks and cut electricity production, the new Interior Department compilation shows. The new report pegs the most probable dam-removal cost at $291.6 million. "The science and analyses presented in these reports are vital to making an informed and sound decision on the Klamath River dam removal," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. Salazar must decide by March 31 whether to recommend the long-debated removal of the four dams near the Oregon border. Three of the dams are in California's northernmost Siskiyou County...more