OXBOW – The third hydroelectric dam in Hells Canyon spans the Snake River like a steel and cement temple.

Completed in 1967, the 330-foot-tall structure stretches between Oregon and Idaho, a testament to the engineering fervor that drove many conquests of natural resources in the West roughly 50 years ago.

The Hells Canyon Dam Complex comprises three major hydroelectric dams and is a crucial component of Idaho Power’s hydroelectric energy holdings.

These dams are also a dead end for salmon. The obstacle cuts off fall chinook and other salmon migration from Idaho to the Pacific Ocean.

The original 50-year license for the dams expires next year. Idaho Power, the complex’s owner, has begun the process of applying for a new license.

That means that for the first time in half a century, the public can weigh in on what Idaho Power must do to continue the privilege of using the Snake River to create electricity.

Some groups want fish passage at all three dams to restore migrating salmon to their historical runs.

Others want improved water quality – lower temperatures and higher levels of dissolved oxygen – above and below the dams. They are also asking for increased river flows downstream.

Their demands have been made in a multitude of comments and letters filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency that will issue the license.

Once issued, the license can only be changed in special circumstances.

”This is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Sara Denniston Eddie, an attorney for Idaho Rivers United, an environmental group that wants to restore Snake River fisheries. ”It really is the only time to get a say and try to change things.”

With all the competing demands, there appear to be no easy answers for what the new Hells Canyon Complex operating license looks like.

”This is probably the most complicated, contentious relicensing FERC will do,” said Dennis Lopez, Idaho Power spokesman. ”But we stand by our operations. There are some changes we feel we need to make, and others that don’t make sense to us.”

KEEPING THE POWER ON

The three dams in Hells Canyon have the capacity to produce 1,167,000 megawatts, enough electricity to power 750,000 homes in a year.

That makes up about 60 percent of the energy Idaho Power hydroelectric projects produce, Lopez said.

Each of the three dams takes water from deep reservoirs. That way, dam operators can produce power whenever the market demands it. Likewise, when there’s no need for power, they can shut down generators and save money.

While that works for hydroelectric efficiency, it causes fluctuations in river levels and temperatures that many biologists, tribal members and environmentalists say are bad for fish in the dams’ reservoirs and downstream of the complex.

Critics have called on Idaho Power to release more water, and store less, to benefit fish.

Power officials consider water a fuel source. Any water that goes through the dam’s spillway to improve water quality or to help fish doesn’t produce energy and is technically wasted, Lopez said.

”If you squander it, you cannot get it back,” he said.

But not releasing water can damage water quality, NOAA fisheries biologist Ritchie Graves said.

”The dams have essentially shifted the temperatures in the river by up to a month (so the water in September is of a temperature more likely to be found in August),” Graves said. ”Most aquatic organisms are cold-blooded, which means their life cycles are affected by temperature. If the temperatures aren’t natural, that can delay the fish. And once they are behind, they always will be.”

Graves said that when water comes into the dams, it is high in nutrient content because it has been polluted with agricultural and industrial runoff. After going through the dams, the nutrient content is lower because the nutrients have been converted to algae, he said.

The algae decompose, which uses up the oxygen in the water.

Consequently, the water that leaves the dams is low in nutrients and also low in oxygen, Graves said.

Fish need oxygen-rich water to survive, so a river with low oxygen content is bad for fish, Graves said.

The water from the Brownlee Dam, the first in the complex, to about 10 miles downstream of the third Hells Canyon Dam has about three milligrams per liter or less of oxygen in it, Graves said.

”That’s really low. It’s enough to kill fish,” he said.

A good level of oxygen in the water is eight to nine milligrams per liter, he said.

Idaho Power studies contradict Graves’ assertions, said Craig Jones, Idaho Power’s director of hydropower relicensing.

Executives have submitted more than 100 studies on their operation to FERC as part of the application process. They say their studies show that passing fish over the dams would fail because the habitat upstream of the dams is in poor shape for fish. Rather than embark on an expensive restoration project, officials want to continue their hatchery program.

If fish passage – and all the habitat-improvement projects that come with it – is required for the license, power rates will spike about 30 percent to 40 percent, Jones said.

By contrast, Jones estimated that rates would only increase 6 percent to 8 percent if FERC approved the license application Idaho Power filed last year, with $380 million in proposed actions to improve environmental quality.

The discrepancy between Idaho Power’s results and the results of other studies underscores the importance of respected scientific studies during this complicated process.

A recent re-licensing settlement on the Deschutes River between the utility company, tribes and environmentalists was possible because all parties ”accepted that we had the absolute best science,” Portland General Electric relicensing director Julie Keil said.

In Hells Canyon, though, disputes over the validity of the science are driving a wedge between the utility and other involved parties, environmental attorney Denniston Eddie said.

SALMON PEOPLE

Before the Hells Canyon Complex was built, at least five American Indian tribes used the remote canyon to fish, hunt and practice religious ceremonies. The productive, salmon-rich region was integral to their culture.

In transcribed meetings with FERC officials, the tribes said they believe the power company is responsible for extensive damage to the Snake River and its fisheries. They want the company to be held accountable and are concerned their desires will be ignored during the process.

The Nez Perce, Shoshone-Bannock and Burns-Pauite tribes, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla claim their ancestors used the area in Hells Canyon.

The treaties ceded land in Hells Canyon to the tribes, essentially providing some access, said Jennifer Frozena, policy analyst with the Columbia Intertribal Fish Commission.

Her organization provides legal and technical support to tribes and assists them in preserving and protecting their treaty rights.

”The tribes, the environmentalists and the biologists are all asking for the same thing,” said Rick Eichsteadt, staff attorney for the Nez Perce. ”They want a study on whether or not fish passage would work.”

Idaho Power has already submitted studies to FERC that conclude fish passage would be an expensive failure.

But Eichsteadt said that science is unreliable.

”The studies they have done are completely inadequate,” he said. ”They make assumptions that the habitat upstream is horrible and won’t improve. We feel that even if you accept that things are bad now, it is ridiculous to assume they will stay that way.”

Even if FERC does not require fish passage, the Federal Power Act gives NOAA fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authority to mandate fish passage over dams.

NOAA biologist Graves said it is premature to say if his agency would mandate that.

”Our preference would be to use our authorities collectively and come up with a settlement,” Graves said.

Threatened fall chinook salmon are perhaps the primary species that could be successfully reintroduced, Graves said. That species spawns in the main stem of the Snake River, and its historical spawning grounds, the Marsing Reach, is still present upstream of the dams.

COSTS ADD UP

Idaho Power officials plan to spend roughly $380 million to improve water quality and other impacts from the dams, according to their license application.

But to undertake major projects to improve water temperatures in the reservoir, pass fish over the dams into a river with poor fish habitat, and restore some or all of that area would be prohibitively expensive, Idaho Power re-licensing director Jones said.

”When you start talking about capital improvements, the costs become really significant,” Jones said. ”Our worst-case scenario would be if we had to install fish passage and temperature control at all three dams. While there are environmental issues to deal with, there are also major economic questions.”

Idaho Power executives would not say how much money the Hells Canyon Complex makes.

But a report from the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the company’s Hells Canyon profits ranged from $123 million in 1998 to $669 million in 2000 to $215 million in 2003.

”Idaho Power uses a public resource. They have free use of public water,” Idaho Rivers attorney Denniston Eddie said. ”It is only fair and in the public interest that they should have to mitigate for the effects of their project, particularly when they are making hundreds of millions of dollars off of it.”