Drought Pinches Hydropower In West, Northwest - Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO - "Electric utilities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest face another tough summer as a record drought slashes available supplies of hydroelectricity, the main power source in the region.

Northwest investor-owned utilities like Idacorp Inc. (IDA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , parent of Idaho's biggest utility Idaho Power, and Avista Corp. (AVA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in Spokane, Washington, must turn to generation fueled by more expensive coal and natural gas to make up hydro shortfalls.

The Northwest, which depends on hydropower for 65 percent of its electricity supply, is in the fifth year of a drought, the driest five-year stretch since hydro record-keeping began in 1929, according to the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon. California, which relied on summer imports of Northwest hydro to keep the lights on during its power crisis in 2000-2001, may be able to draw some supplies from the region this summer, said BPA spokesman Ed Mosey.

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The volume of water flowing through the region's big hydroelectric dams is only 74 percent of normal at The Dalles dam on the Columbia River in Oregon, according to the National Weather Service's Northwest River Forecast Center in Portland. The Dalles is the next-to-last dam on the Columbia and the key station to measure the volume of water available for power generation throughout the Northwest. Idaho Power, in Boise, Idaho, depends on the Brownlee Reservoir on the Snake River system for hydroelectricity, and its water flow now is at only 40 percent of normal, according to the forecast."

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25122/story.htm

:eyes:

as the dams hold back flows for power to the detriment of the fish.

Damn libruls.