BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
UPDATED WITH COMMENTS FROM THE CITY OF SEATTLE IN THE 5th, 14TH AND 15TH PARAGRAPHS AND WDFW IN THE 10TH AND 12TH PARAGRAPHS
Dogged Seattle TV news investigators are reporting that the operator of three dams on the Skagit River has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion to install fish passage around the North Cascades facilities.
KING 5 says the deal still needs to be approved by federal regulators as part of a longterm dam relicensing agreement, but it represents a victory for a pair of Skagit Valley tribes as well as state, federal and tribal scientists who didn’t believe Seattle City Light’s long contention that its Gorge, Diablo and Ross Dams didn’t harm salmon.
“Upper Skagit was driven by the will of our ancestors to right (these) historical wrongs, to free our river and fish, and bring honor to our ancestors. The Upper Skagit have paid a steep cost for this massive hydroelectric project, which was built on our home and lands that are sacred,” tribal elder and natural resources policy representative Scott Schuyler told the station.
A formal announcement from the utility was expected next Monday, but the City of Seattle held a hastily organized news conference Thursday afternoon.
“This marks a major milestone in the Skagit relicensing process,” said Mayor Katie B. Wilson in a prepared statement. “The settlement is an expression of Seattle’s commitment to safe, renewable energy. Through it, we are also committing to putting people first by respecting Tribal sovereignty and leadership, prioritizing flood risk management for downstream communities, and enhancing education and recreation opportunities. The Skagit ecosystem and the broader public will be better served because of this agreement achieved through years of collaboration.”
In 2023, SCL committed to providing up- and downstream fish passage around its three ladderless dams as part of relicensing.
Last month, NW Fishletter reported that Seattle City Light had apprised the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it had reached a “final comprehensive settlement agreement” with 11 federal, state, tribal and county entities as well as several NGOs to relicense the dams and that after all parties as well as the Seattle City Council approved it, SCL expected to submit the deal to FERC by late April.
While the three dams have provided cheap electrical power to Seattle ratepayers since the mid-1900s, they also cut off a fair-sized portion of the watershed’s salmon, steelhead and char habitat. SCL had maintained that salmon never used the waters above the Skagit Gorge, a narrow chute ridden with massive boulders fallen off surrounding peaks.
The utility dewatered the lower gorge to pipe water to its Newhalem powerplant, but SCL was undermined in 2019 when a Chinook was video-taped spawning there, KING 5 reported.
“After nearly eight years of discussion with Seattle City Light, Skagit treaty tribes, and other federal, state, and local agencies, this relicensing agreement is good news for fish passage, habitat restoration, and people from the Skagit Valley to the City of Seattle,” said WDFW Director Kelly Susewind in a prepared statement this afternoon.
The TV station says that Skagit fish passage is the largest tab on an overall $3.8 billion package of habitat restoration, water quality and other work over the 50-year relicensing agreement, and it will be “among the most complex engineering challenges ever undertaken on a Pacific Northwest river. Design and permitting alone will take years. Construction will take more.”
“This is an important milestone, but it is not the finish line,” said WDFW North Puget Sound Regional Director Brendan Brokes, who represented the agency at a policy level during SCL relicensing. “We look forward to continued collaboration with Seattle City Light, our tribal co-managers, and local partners to support implementation of this agreement, including significant investments in bringing salmon back to the upper Skagit watershed and restoring habitat for fish and wildlife.”
Cheap hydropower has come at a cost to salmon runs and fisheries, but recent decades have seen the region working to correct that. Now it is the home of environmental awareness and equity’s turn to pay the freight.
Mayor Wilson said reaching today’s milestone was thanks to SCL employees, signatory organizations, engineering and environmental experts and the public.
“It is through everyone’s passion and hard work that we are one step closer to having a new operating license for one of our city’s most important sources of renewable energy,” she stated.
