Removing Dams Would Be Expensive Bpa Study Pegs Cost At More Than $2 Billion Over 35 Years

Removal within 10 years of four dams on the lower Snake River and John Day Dam on the Columbia River could cost the Bonneville Power Administration more than $2 billion through the year 2032, according to a new study prepared for the Northwest Power Planning Council.

And those results do not take into account the loss of the navigation and flood-control capabilities the dams now provide, said council members who heard the report Tuesday in Spokane.

Many in the Northwest want the dams destroyed because they block or delay the passage of thousands of salmon and steelhead that migrate upstream from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. Those runs once numbered in the millions.

Billions of dollars spent on alleviating problems created by the dams have so far failed to reverse the decline significantly.

Pete Swartz, systems analyst for the power council, said clearing away Ice Harbor, Lower Monument, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams on the Snake would cost about $500 million.

Breaching John Day would cost another $800 million.

But the burden of financing those expenditures would be dwarfed by the revenues the dams’ turbines would no longer generate.

The five dams produce one-quarter of the 10,000 megawatts of electricity sold by Bonneville, which has an annual budget of about $2.3 billion.

Over 30 years, Swartz said, lost revenues would amount to $4.1 billion. The impacts would be partly offset by avoided operation and maintenance expenses for the dams.

Those results assume electricity sales at 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, about where the market is today. If kilowatts sell for two cents by 2005, even fast-track removal of the dams would leave Bonneville with a $1.5 billion surplus by 2032.

Swartz said phasing in dam removal over a 12-year period beginning in 2006 would produce a modest $106 million loss over 30 years even if power remains at 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.

At two cents, the surplus is almost $4 billion.

By comparison, continued operation of the dams would yield surpluses of as much as $7.1 billion if power sells for two cents.

Ken Casavant, Eastern Washington’s representative on the council, said the study understates the impacts of dam removal.

But he added that graphs comparing market costs with Bonneville’s over the long term should encourage Northwest utilities to continue to buy the federal agency’s power once their present contracts expire because they will save money sooner or later.

“It’s a very good marketing tool as well as an analytical tool,” he said.

, DataTimes