Dam fight heats up

Running the Post Falls Dam in a way that satisfies the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and other interests would be an unfair $400 million to $500 million endeavor to be borne by Avista Utility ratepayers over the next 50 years, according to the company.

Avista is fighting what it calls unreasonable demands to relicense and operate the dam that maintains the water level of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Among the conditions demanded by the tribe: stop looters of tribal artifacts by hiring police; monitor water quality; fund studies for stream restoration to boost cutthroat trout numbers; and pay for lands and habitat damaged by boat wake and wave erosion.

Coeur d’Alene Tribe attorney Howard Funke called Avista’s cost estimate a blatant attempt to rile ratepayers and create political backlash by warning of lower lake levels in the future.

“To lay such hot-button issues of huge costs to ratepayers and losing the ability to store water in the lake is classic fear mongering,” Funke said. “Avista should be above this.”

Relicensing the Spokane River dams with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is a complicated, high-dollar, political puzzle for the utility. It involves homeowners, property developers, Coeur d’Alene business and resort interests, fishery advocates, federal and state laws, the flow of the Spokane River, and the economic interests of Avista.

While the dams don’t generate as much electricity as the company’s big hydroelectric projects on the Clark Fork River in Idaho and Montana, they are valuable assets – especially during a time of higher electricity prices.

Bruce Howard, Avista’s licensing manager for the Spokane River, said the tribe, along with the U.S. Department of the Interior, is attempting to blame all of the lake’s problems on Avista and its dam. He noted the effects of mining, road building, logging, government management, home construction and boating and other recreation uses all have taken a toll on the lake’s health.

Avista is being asked to reconcile the existence of a dam that was built a century ago with all of the laws and new perspectives that have come about in the last 15 to 30 years, he said.

“We’re not trying to shortchange our way through this,” Howard said, noting that the extensive demands by the tribe and the Interior Department surprised the company, even after years of failed negotiations.

Now the problems are headed for legal hearings.

Avista proposes spending about $135 million during the next 50 years to offset habitat destruction, add recreation opportunities and pay for certain tribal programs related to the lake. Funke said Avista has refused to pay for studies that would define the dam’s role in problems afflicting the lake.

Funke added that the top five executives of Avista will be paid a total of about $138 million in salary alone during the next 50 years – without a pay raise and not including bonuses, stock grants, stock options and special retirement pay perks.

“They had an opportunity to resolve this in an amiable manner and instead chose to rile people up,” he said. “How unfortunate. I’ll guarantee you that what comes out of all this won’t be $400 million or $500 million.”

Funke also accused Avista of using its Post Falls dam as unfair leverage as it tries to simultaneously relicense its run of Spokane River dams, including two in downtown Spokane at Upper Falls and Monroe Street; the Nine Mile dam and the Long Lake dam.

Separating the Post Falls dam from the others, he said, is a clear attempt to shield money from the other river dams and make the Post Falls project look economically feeble. Doing so would give Avista the ability to claim that the dam doesn’t make enough money to pay for tribal demands. Relicensing all of the dams together, which is the way it has been done historically, would undermine Avista’s “lack of revenue” economic argument, Funke said.

Howard said he remains hopeful an agreement can be reached.

“That’s always been our goal,” he said. “We want to work with the tribe and the government.”