Teeterville Dam, Big Creek
ORA’s June 2025 letter raised five specific concerns regarding the AET matrix: the misclassification of climate change criteria within the Technical/Engineering category; the underweighting of Natural Environment (25%) relative to Social/Cultural (40%); the exclusion of methane emissions from reservoir sediments as a scored criterion; the failure to credit the carbon sequestration potential of riparian habitat restoration; and the heavy weighting of upfront construction costs (70% within the Economic category) over long-term lifecycle maintenance costs (30%).
The Final Report acknowledges the scientific foundation of several of these concerns in narrative text, including that shallow reservoirs emit methane from anoxic bottom sediments, and that dam removal would convert the reservoir from a greenhouse gas (GHG) source to a carbon sink through vegetation establishment. However, none of these recognized ecological and climate realities were incorporated into the scoring framework. Acknowledgement in narrative text, without corresponding weight in the evaluation matrix, has no bearing on the comparative scores or the preferred alternative selection. The Final Report does not explain why these science-based concerns were excluded from scoring.
