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Council Report Tallies Bonneville Power's Fish/Wildlife Costs for 2014: $782 Million by Staff Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 26, 2015

The total of all fish and wildlife costs reported by Bonneville in Fiscal Year 2014
($782.3 million) includes forgone revenue and power purchases.

The Bonneville Power Administration's total fish and wildlife costs for 2014 was $782 million, according to the draft "2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program Costs Report" released for public comment by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

This is the fourteenth year the Council has reported to the Northwest governors on the cost of implementing the Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, which BPA funds.

The purpose of the report is to provide information, not to assess or comment on the costs. Information in the report is provided by Bonneville and is not independently verified by the Council. The Council says it "has neither the expertise nor the resources to analyze the accuracy of BPA's reported costs."

Since 2001, in response to a request from the governors of the four Northwest states, the Council has reported annually on all costs related to fish and wildlife incurred by BPA, as reported by BPA, including costs to implement the Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.

In this 14th annual report, the Council provides an update of Bonneville's reported fish and wildlife costs in Fiscal Year 2014.

Summary of 2014 costs

In Fiscal Year 2014, Bonneville reported total fish and wildlife costs of approximately $782.3 million, as follows:

• $231.8 million in direct (expense) costs.

• $90.3 million in direct costs and reimbursements to the federal Treasury for expenditures by the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for investments in fish passage and fish production, including direct funding of operations and maintenance expenses of federal fish hatcheries; this category also includes one-half of the Council's $10.2 million budget in Fiscal Year 2014 (the other half is assigned to the Power Business Line budget).

• $141.3 million in fixed costs (interest, amortization, and depreciation) of capital investments for facilities such as hatcheries, fish-passage facilities at dams, and some land purchases for fish and wildlife habitat.

• $122.7 million in forgone hydropower sales revenue that results from dam operations that benefit fish but reduce hydropower generation.

• $196.2 million in power purchases during periods when dam operations to protect migrating fish reduce hydropower generation, such as by spilling water over dams in the spring or storing it behind dams in winter months in anticipation of required spring spill.

These investments are funded by congressional appropriations and repaid by Bonneville. Including them in the same total as fixed costs would double-count some of the capital investment. The total also does not reflect a credit of $84 million from the federal Treasury related to fish and wildlife costs in 2014 that Bonneville is required to take under Section 4(h)(10)(C) of the Power Act.

The annual credit comprises the obligations of other federal agencies for dam purposes other than hydropower, and which Bonneville pays in full. The credit is applied to Bonneville's federal Treasury debt. Subtracting the credit reduces the total fish and wildlife costs to $678.7 million in fiscal year 2014 (the credit is explained in more detail in the "Power System Costs" section of the report).

The total of all fish and wildlife costs reported by Bonneville in Fiscal Year 2014 ($782.3 million) includes forgone revenue and power purchases.

How large is this relative to Bonneville's other costs? Bonneville reports the relationship in this way: in the same year, Bonneville's entire Power Business Line costs totaled approximately $2.337 billion. Adding the forgone revenue ($122.7 million) to these costs brings the total to $2.459 billion.

Bonneville's fish and wildlife costs of $782.3 million comprised 31.8 percent of that total.

Fish and wildlife costs account for a significant portion of the rate Bonneville charges its wholesale power customers. Approximately one-third of Bonneville's wholesale rate of approximately $31.50 per megawatt hour is estimated to be associated with its fish and wildlife program.