LIGHT READING INLAND POWER AND LIGHT inlandpower.com From 2005 to 2015, BPA spent $8.08 billion on fish and wildlife habitat and recovery investments. BPA ratepayers, including Inland Power members, have spent an average of $734 million per year regionally on fish and wildlife programs. Yet, costly legal challenges to hydro generation continue with no end in sight.
Know your fish facts. Today, there are more salmon in the Columbia River than at any time since the first lower Columbia mainstem dam was built at Bonneville in 1938.
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HOW FISH RESTORATION EFFORTS IMPACT YOU Inland Power receives significant benefits from hydropower (please see our current energy mix report included in this issue). The Federal Columbia River Power System supplies a majority of the region’s carbon-free renewable energy, but has been a constant target of litigation by advocates for dam removal. In this issue, we have highlighted some of those threats, while also sharing the good news about what’s being done to preserve this precious generation resource and what you can do to protect our region’s hydropower advantage. The Northwest hydro system took a major hit last May when a Federal District Court Judge in Oregon rejected the 2014 Biological Opinion (BiOp), a federal salmon plan that was scientifically vetted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s top scientists and agreed to by a majority of states, tribes, federal agencies and river interests in the region. The court also ordered the replacement study consider the breaching and/or removal of the four Lower Snake River dams in Washington. These four dams produce enough energy to serve a city about the size of Seattle.
In late November we were given another blow when the same court ordered BPA to conduct an increased While Inland spill test in 2018. Power is committed Increased spill has to a balance between been tried previously energy and the without measurable environment, how benefits to fish survival we get there is rates, but we do know of concern. As increased spill causes high you’ll learn here, levels of dissolved gas in the however, there are water, which is harmful to fish. those who are This spill test will cost electric stepping up to the ratepayers approximately $40 plate to declare million. the value of the hydropower to our economy and way of life.
H.R. 3144 – GOOD NEWS FOR THE NORTHWEST AND THE FEDERAL HYDRO SYSTEM THAT POWERS IT. Recently, members of the Northwest Congressional Delegation stepped up to defend the federal hydro system, our greatest renewable, carbon-free source of electric energy. This bipartisan legislation was introduced by Representative Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA), and co-sponsored by Representatives Jaime Herrera-Beutler (R-WA), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Kurt Shrader (D-OR) and Greg Walden (R-OR). The intent of the legislation is to keep the 2014 Biological Opinion’s (BiOp) salmon protection measures and hydro system operations in place until the new plan ordered by the Judge in Oregon. H.R. 3144 is a common-sense approach that keeps the Court from experimenting with operation of the Northwest’s federal hydro system, which provides 90 percent of the Northwest’s renewable energy, and maintains our economy and quality of life. This bill is good for the Pacific Northwest because it will help keep energy costs and uncertainty in power supply down, while keeping the 2014 BiOp’s measures and operations in place to protect and restore salmon and other endangered species. HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU. The Northwest’s hydro system and its multiple benefits (flood control, affordable power, irrigation, farming, navigation, trade and recreation) for Northwest families and businesses needs to be protected. This is critical to keeping our electric rates affordable for Inland Power members. The impacts of dam experimentation, as required by the courts, will add costs and would potentially have harmful impacts on salmon. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Contact your Washington congressional delegation and encourage them to support H.R. 3144 and to work with their counterparts to get it passed. Inland Power thanks you, our members, for your assistance in protecting our hydropower - the most clean and renewable form of energy generation that exists today. Source: nwriverpartners.org
i nland powe r is my coope rat ive