Tacoma Power, Lewis County Public Utility District, and
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) have signed a long-term agreement that
will improve natural fish runs in western Washington’s Cowlitz River. At the
same time, Tacoma Power and Lewis County PUD have formalized an agreement to
work cooperatively when the time comes to seek re-licensing from the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for their respective dams in the Cowlitz
River basin.
“This agreement is the foundation for improving downstream
fish collection on the Cowlitz River,” said Ted Coates, Tacoma Power
superintendent. “All three signatories are committed to a new era of
cooperation and mutual support.”
The agreement allows Tacoma Power to take ownership of
BPA-owned existing fish collection facilities at Lewis County PUD’s Cowlitz
Falls Dam, and to install, operate, and maintain improved fish collection
structures at the dam to increase fish survival. The upgraded facilities will
attract more juvenile Chinook, steelhead, and Coho as the fish migrate
downstream. The fish will be collected and then trucked around the dams and
released to continue their trip to the ocean.
The improvements are part of Tacoma Power’s 2002 FERC
license for operating Mayfield and Mossyrock dams, located downstream of
Cowlitz Falls Dam. The license calls for Tacoma Power to improve downstream
fish collection and survival from the upper Cowlitz River basin.
Lewis County PUD completed Cowlitz Falls Dam in 1994. Under
a formal agreement with BPA, the PUD provides all of the dam’s power (29.7
annual average megawatts) to BPA at the cost of production, and BPA pays
operations and maintenance costs at the facility.
In 1996, BPA built juvenile fish collection facilities at
the dam. The Cowlitz Falls Fish Facility collects about half the migrating
juvenile fish from the Upper Cowlitz River Basin and trucks them down to
Barrier Dam just below Tacoma Power’s Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery. The fish are
deposited in ponds at the hatchery and, after a brief recovery period, returned
to the river.
Adult fish returning to the Cowlitz River are collected
below Tacoma’s dams and transported to the Tilton River above Mayfield Dam or
to the Cowlitz and Cispus rivers above Cowlitz Falls Dam.
Under the new agreement, Tacoma Power will construct new
fish collector, to be operated in tandem with the existing facilities, at an
estimated cost of $30 million. Extensive fish evaluations and modeling have
helped identify that an adaptable shore-based fish collector on the north shore
of Cowlitz Falls Dam will work best to meet Tacoma’s fish collection goals; it
is expected to significantly increase the number of juvenile fish collected and
safely transported past the dams. BPA will provide funding through June 2032 to
partially offset Tacoma’s cost to operate the existing facility. The new
agreement also transfers the BPA-owned ponds and related equipment at the
Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery to Tacoma Power.
“All of us that own and operate hydro projects know that we
have an obligation to put resources back in the river,” said Bob Geddes,
manager, Lewis County PUD. “This new agreement gives us a chance to do that
collectively and it also puts us in a good position for the future when the
project is up for relicensing.”
Pending FERC approval, the key elements of the new agreement
will go into effect on October 1. Construction is slated to begin in early
2015, with a goal of starting fish collection in 2017.
