Take Action - Oregon House Bill 2873 MUST DIE!

From the gang at The Caddis Fly comes this heads up about a really bad bill making its way to the Oregon House floor. The vote was originally scheduled for this past Friday but has now been delayed until Monday so there is still time to help kill this bill.

What House Bill 2873 does: HB 2873 prohibits the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from requiring fish passage, screening or bypass devices when an “in-conduit” hydroelectric project is developed on manmade canal or diversion structure.

The development of hydroelectric facilities on existing manmade canals and diversion structures (otherwise known as in-conduit hydro) has long been allowed under Oregon law (ORS Chapter 543). In 2007, HB 2785 was adopted to allow an expedited process for the development this type of power. This new law allowed for a much quicker approval process—providing an incentive to develop this type of power – but only if key resource protections were in place. Fish passage and screening were contemplated from the outset as a minimum condition and were agreed to by the Oregon Water Resources Congress (the proponent of HB 2873), the Oregon Farm Bureau, conservation groups, state agencies, and others. This agreement was the basis for conservation groups to not oppose the 2007 bill.

Nice of those folks at the Oregon Water Resource Congress to go back on the deal eh?

Caddis Fly has all the details as well as a cut and paste e-mail.