Kempthorne: Bush wants deal to remove Klamath Dams

Kempthorne spoke on a conference call marking the signing of an agreement by PacifiCorp to start down a road that will lead to beginning to remove the dams by the year 2020. Kempthorne said the president told officials "to find a collaborative solution" for the Klamath that makes sense for PacifiCorp and doesn't pit one interest group against another.

The Bush administration had strongly backed farmers in 2001 after the Endangered Species Act forced the shut-off of irrigation water to thousands of acres of farms to leave enough for threatened salmon.

When the administration restored irrigation in 2002 over the objections of tribes and conservation groups, low water conditions in the Klamath River led to the deaths of 70,000 adult salmon returning to spawn.

"We all have those images of what happened in Klamath," Kempthorne said. "Nobody wants to see those images occur again. We were motivated to find a solution because we've seen how bad it can be. Nobody wanted to say, `It's beyond our abilities to solve this.'"

In a statement released by the White House, President George W. Bush said the nonbinding agreement for removing four dams along the Klamath River turns "what was a conflict into a conservation success.

"Together, we have produced an agreement that will greatly reduce the risk of future shutdowns of the irrigation system," he said. "I applaud this example of cooperative conservation and thank everyone who worked to bring it about."

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Kempthorne's appointment as Interior secretary in 2006 brought someone to the conflict with a history of cooperative solutions.

"It's a model for not only the West, but a model for the rest of the country of how federal and state governments and private individuals can all work together," Kulongoski said.

Kempthorne added that the agreement was an effort to help a private company make a good business decision, and should not be taken as an indication the Bush administration is changing its position opposing removal of four federally owned hydroelectric dams on the Salmon River in Eastern Washington to help salmon.