When Snohomish County PUD General Manager Steve Klein disappeared in a vapor of smelly gas a year before his planned retirement, I was so hoping to see a new light shining at PUD headquarters. Yes, as in solar, among many other — but not new hydropower; calling it green or clean every time you are in front of the microphone does not make it true. The new PUD GM Mr. Craig Collar seemed surprised at the last commissioner’s meeting when the room filled to overflowing with opponents to the ridiculously re-named “Sunset Fish Passage and Energy Project.” That really is a creative name for a massive industrial hydropower project on a protected section of the pristine Skykomish River.
It is past time to “get real.” Shell Oil can figure out when the pipeline is a bust. Our own president has been reviewing the Paris Climate Conference every night on the news and I have not once heard the word “hydropower” mentioned. Are you listening, PUD? It boils down to simple cost vs benefit and you have seen the math.
Steve Klein hoped his last hurrah would be a dam on the Skykomish and he watched his proposal flap all over his desk like a freshly caught salmon in the bottom of a boat. Mr. Collar should please consider letting his legacy someday be that he turned things around at PUD and left behind boondoggles and unnecessary construction and smashing a PUD footprint on every last mile of free-running rivers in our state.
Lynne Kelly
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