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March 25, 2002

PacifiCorp to sue over fish screens

PORTLAND (AP) -- PacifiCorp says it will sue the federal government rather than install screens at two small power plants in the Klamath Basin to keep protected fish from being killed.

A variety of interested parties in last summer's Klamath water dispute -- including biologists, lawmakers and farmers -- have advocated screening irrigation canals and intake pipes at power plants as a way of protecting two endangered species of sucker fish.

Federal officials withheld irrigation water from land owners in the Klamath Basin last year so it could be used to aid the fish. The shifted priorities produced tension among farmers and law enforcement.

Studies estimate that PacifiCorp's two hydroelectric diversions at Link River Dam in Klamath Falls have drawn in as many as 82,000 sucker fish a year out of the Upper Klamath Lake.

Federal authorities have pledged to install screens across the A Canal -- the largest irrigation intake in the entire Klamath irrigation system. But PacifiCorp fears the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will require the utility to do the same at its two power plants.




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