Congress is poised to deliver enough federal money to begin construction next spring of a water-pumping station set to replace the aged Savage Rapids Dam in the Rogue River.

Despite budget cuts and competition for money in Hurricane Katrina’s wake, the 2006 federal budget has $1.5 million for keeping the timeline for removing the 83-year-old dam and replacing it with electric pumps to feed Grants Pass Irrigation District customers.

The money is in the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that came out of a joint House of Representatives and U.S. Senate committee last week. It has yet to be signed into law.

The money will go to the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is almost done with the pumping station design and could go out for bids on the $15 million pumping plant as early as late winter.

Bob Hamilton, the bureau’s manager for the Savage Rapids Dam project, said the plan is to first construct the water intake for the plant, which will pump and pipe water to GPID’s more than 7,000 patrons on both sides of the river.

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GPID and dam-removal advocates collectively sighed with relief when word of the bill’s money reached Southern Oregon.

"This is good news," said Bob Hunter, staff attorney for WaterWatch of Oregon, which has lobbied for years for removing the dam spanning the Rogue near the Jackson-Josephine county border. "This keeps the project front and center and moving on."

Plans are to seek about $15 million in the 2007 budget for building the pumping station and necessary piping, Hunter said. Congress would then be asked for about $3 million for dam-removal out of the 2008 budget, Hunter said.

Removing the dam is estimated to cost about $6 million, and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board previously gave $3 million for it.

Hunter and GPID Manager Dave Howard thanked Oregon’s congressional delegation for keeping the project alive.

Removing the dam and installing the pumps provides a long-term solution to the current dam’s fish-passage problems while keeping GPID in the irrigation business.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study concluded the dam severely reduces the Rogue's ability to grow wild salmon and steelhead.

The bureau recently completed an environmental study that backed a 1995 conclusion that dam removal was the best and cheapest alternative for solving the dam's fish-passage and water-delivery issues.

The bureau’s design also calls for a single large pumping station along the river's south bank. A large electronic substation would be built to carry the power necessary to run the nine pumps within the enclosed station.

The design includes sending water to patrons on the north side of the river through a 30-inch pipe suspended above the Rogue River atop remnants of the old dam. The design has been panned in the Rogue River community as a potential eyesore.

A consent decree the district signed under a federal judge's watchful eye in 2001 dictates that the dam will no longer be used to help deliver irrigation water after 2006. The district has since received a one-year extension, so the timeline in the environmental assessment matches the decree.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.