Klamath Tear-Down: Trust the Cost-Benefit Analysis

(Chronicle map)

California has dire need for both water and electricity. Hydroelectric dams provide both, and do so without producing carbon emissions. One would be hard pressed to find a more beneficial example of human engineering.

At first blush it doesn't make sense that four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River will be torn down.

the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history is expected to begin in California’s far north next year.

The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River, the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two others nearby and one across the state line will follow.

Environmentalists and fishermen are eagerly anticipating the restoration of the Klamath chinook salmon run, which once totalled in the hundreds of thousands but is now 10% of that number. But the principal reason for the tear-down is that the cost of maintaining aging dams exceeds the benefit of electricity generation, and "the dams are not used for irrigation, municipal water or flood control."

The plan to raze the dams is the product of at least 20 years of debate over what to do with the river’s old and increasingly problematic infrastructure.

Owned by power company PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the dams have long needed major upgrades, including fish ladders, which are believed to cost more than the dams’ worth as hydroelectric assets...

Despite the cost-benefit analysis, some residents are reluctant "to surrender any power source and [have] less water available for fighting wildfires." We just have to trust that Warren Buffett's company knows what it's doing, a good bet based on Mr. Buffett's past record of determining value.

Related: in 2018 Stanford University brought together environmental groups and hydropower interests, who are known for their vehement disagreements, to discuss how to generate more electricity while improving the health of rivers. They already can point to some successes.