Avista criticized over impact of dams

An environmental activist criticized Avista Corp. during the company’s annual meeting Thursday for the harm he said Avista’s five dams cause the Spokane River.

The dams decrease water flows, degrade water quality and are blocking the return of the salmon, John Osborn said in a prepared statement during the question and answer portion of the meeting.

Osborn called on the company to provide information about the five dams’ total economic value; data regarding environmental conditions at the Post Falls dam both before and after construction; and a cost comparison of alternative energy sources that could replace the dams’ combined 100-megawatt output.

Osborn’s comments came at a time that Avista is putting the finishing touches on the 3-year-long process of reapplying for its 50-year federal license to operate the dams. Company officials said two of the studies Osborn requested, regarding the economic value and the comparison of cost alternatives, are being completed as part of the application process.

Avista Corp. CEO Gary Ely said the process has involved hundreds of people representing a wide array of interests and that thousands of hours of meetings have been held. Interested parties range from waterfront property owners to environmentalists to rafters and fishermen.

Ely said that there have been so many interests in this process that, “We haven’t been able to find a settlement that meets everyone’s needs.”

The company’s draft application was released three months ago and the public has until May 23 to comment on it, said Rick Eichstaedt, an attorney representing the Sierra Club, who accompanied Osborn to the meeting. The studies Avista said it is preparing for its final application should have been included in the draft proposal so the public could see and comment upon them, he said.

Avista officials said returning salmon to the Spokane River would require a regional plan as the salmon begin their journey at the mouth of the Columbia River, with many dams — some not owned by Avista — standing in their way. There is fish passage up to the Chief Joseph Dam, but not beyond it, at Grand Coulee Dam or any of the five Spokane River dams, said Bob Anderson, Avista’s director of environmental affairs.

“As far as we know, there’s no organized effort or initiative to study the feasibility of moving salmon and steelhead above Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee,” Anderson said. “There’s folks that desire that and our position is, if there’s a regional effort … we’d take a look at what it would take to provide fish passage through our Spokane River dams.”

In addition, company spokesman Hugh Imhof disagreed that the Spokane River dams decrease river flows, saying that instead, they store water which then provides a more steady flow than would naturally occur.

In the middle of the meeting, the 100 or so shareholders gathered were startled when former Avista Corp. CEO Paul Redmond suddenly called for a doctor. Another former Avista Corp. CEO, Wendell Satre, who was sitting next to Redmond, appeared to have slumped over.

Osborn, who is also a physician, responded and cared for Satre until the ambulance arrived. Following the meeting, current CEO Ely sought Osborn out to shake his hand and thank him.

A Deaconess Medical Center official said Thursday afternoon that Satre was in satisfactory condition.