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the Colorado River will leave WAPA with a seasonal capacity shortfall just when measures to 

 improve salmon survival in the Columbia and Snake will create excess capacity for BPA. 



When the real-world potential for power sales to California and the Southwest are factored in, 

 the annual cost of lost hydropower as a result of actions to help salmon is as little as $21 million, a 

 far cry from BPA's high estimate of $160 million and significantly lower even than BPA's more 

 realistic estimate of $66-88 million. 



Reducing the Costs of 'Spill' 



Water "spilled" over dams' spillways, to divert small fish away from deadly turbines and mechani- 

 cal bypasses, also creates some reduction of hydropower generation. Water that goes over the 

 spillway and not through turbines is lost "fuel" from a hydropower standpoint. 



The costs of spill can be minimized, however, with a water management device called a "surface 

 collector." These facilities work well at Wells Dam in the mid-Columbia. Juvenile salmon migrate 

 very near the surface of the water, and a surface collector takes advantage of this natural behavior. 

 The device diverts only the top layer of water over the spillway, which minimizes the amount of 

 water that bypasses the turbines, yet still sends most of the fish safely over the spillway. By reducing 

 the amount of water that bypasses the turbines as spill, surface collectors can significantly reduce 

 spill costs, and the risk of gas bubble disease for fish. 



Buying Surplus Water for Salmon Flou'S 



There is a significant opportunity to offset some of the water that is lost to hydropower generation as 

 a result of spill with water buy-backs at market value from farmers irrigating low value, surplus 

 crops. Paying farmers not to produce has a long history in the U.S. as a means to bolster chronic low 

 crop prices, stem over-production, and reduce environmental damage. A water acquisition program 

 for the sake of salmon could accomplish a similar purpose by paying farmers the net profit from the 

 irrigated crop in order to leave their water in the river. 



Purchasing an additional million acre-feet of water to retain it in the Snake River system will 

 cost about $28 million per year (based on the value of irrigated crops). However, buying water to 

 increase flows for salmon also has the effect of increasing water available in the river for hydro- 

 power generation and it reduces the need for other generating resources. 



BPA estimates the current value to the hydrosystem of an additional million acre-feet of water to 

 be about $-10 million per year in increased power revenues. Thus if power generators pay farmers to 

 stop irrigating surplus crops by guaranteeing farmers the same profits the crops could be expected 

 to earn, power generators could reap a net benefit of $12 million in increased hydropower sales 

 while fish reap the benefits of added flows. 



Recalculating the Cost of Construction 



The cost of physically modifying dams in order to accommodate annual drawdowns is a large part 

 of the exper\se of these measures. The reported construction costs, as estimated by the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers, have been significantly exaggerated, however — from a computation error tliat 

 overstated the annualized costs of construction by a whopping $62 million, to design, engineering, 

 and construction plans that private contractors sav can be reduced by $39 million. 



Other engineering firms commissioned to review the Corps' plans identified changes in design, 

 scheduling, and contingencies proposed by the Corps that both reduce costs and put salmon-saving 

 measures uito place in 7.5 years instead of 15 \ ears as proposed by the Corps. 



