Some Dam Hydro News - Stanford University other big dams of the era, Hoover and Grand Coulee, are constructed of concrete. Six men are entombed in the dam, and there is a memorial

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6/01/2012

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“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Castoro Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson

DamsDams::    (If you missed it last week on PBS, you could drive to a local theater.) DAMMING ‘BIG MUDDY’ Documentary about Fort Peck Dam construction comes to public television May 25, 2012, billingsgazette.com • By Jaci Webb Telling the story in one hour of the herculean effort it took to redirect the longest river in the U.S. and construct the Fort Peck Dam was a challenge for filmmaker Scott Sterling. The result, the Montana PBS documentary “Fort Peck Dam,” brings all the elements of this fascinating story together with interviews with folks who were there. “Fort Peck Dam” will be shown free at 7 p.m.

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

Quote of Note: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." --Theodore Roosevelt

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June 14 at the Babcock Theatre; June 15 at 7 p.m. at the Custer County Art & Heritage Center in Miles City; and at 7 p.m. June 23 at the Fort Peck Theater in Fort Peck. Sterling said he worked hard to make the film a story about the people, not just the project initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Ten days after Roosevelt signed the order for the project, workers started showing up in Fort Peck. Montanans and married men with families were given priority. The building of boomtowns During its peak in 1936, the construction site of the Army Corps of Engineers employed 10,000 people. Because many of those workers were family men who brought their wives and children, it was estimated that 40,000 people were living in the 18 boomtowns that faded back into the prairie after the project was completed in 1940. Only the incorporated towns of Glasgow, Fort Peck and Nashua survived. Sterling tapped into the Army Corps of Engineers’ archive of 8,000 photos and 30 hours of film. He also placed ads around Montana looking for anyone who worked on the project or lived in the boomtowns. He found a few gems, including Joseph A. Morin Jr., now 97, who went searching for his birth certificate to get on the project. In the film, Morin says the

Wolf Point hospital where he was born had a record of Joseph Morin Sr.’s birth, but not junior. “I guess you haven’t been born yet,” they told him. Morin ended up using a church baptismal record instead oa birth record and joined the crew for six years,

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leaving in 1938. At the time he left the project, he was making a whopping 92 cents an hour. Most of the general laborers earned 50 cents an hour. Frozen beds Another source for the film was Ivy Stebleton, who grew up in the boomtown of Wheeler. At age 6, she would run down to the Wheeler Motel and earn a quarter for making beds in the morning. Stebleton

recalled mornings so cold that her mattress froze to the wall of their shack. She also told of the dark day when her brother returned home, skipping out on his usual stops at the pubs on his way home, to tell their mother about the slide that killed eight men. “Joe came home and told Mom, ‘I almost died today,’ ” Stebleton said. The slide, which occurred in 1938 when the dam and spillway were almost completed, scared everyone. Folks were running for the highest ground they could find, worried that the whole dam was going to break. A 2,000-foot-long section gave way because of a weakness in the

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bedrock the dam sits on, Sterling said. Fort Peck Dam remains the largest hydraulic filled earthen dam in the world. The other big dams of the era, Hoover and Grand Coulee, are constructed of concrete. Six men are entombed in the dam, and there is a memorial to them at the dam site. In all, 59 men were killed on the project. “The dam itself is just a huge pile of earth,” Sterling said. “It looks like a mountain. You don’t get the sense of it like you do with Hoover Dam. A lot of people go to the spillway and think that’s the dam. In fact, a Life magazine article misidentified the spillway as the dam.” The cover of Life

Sterling was curious about life in the boom towns. The Life magazine article, an eight-page spread on Fort Peck Dam in the first issue of Life, was published on Nov. 23, 1It depicted the boomtowns as the Wild West, and some folks in the area were upset by that. Sterling was impressed with the structure in the towns. They had schools, stores and churches, in addition to the saloons that operated 24 hours a day. The Fort Peck Theater was built to entertain the workers, and movies were shown around the clock. The kitchens operated throughout the day, making 12,000 sandwiches a day to feed

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the workers. “They had a reputation for being the Wild West reborn, but at the same time, these were families who wanted a nice place to live. They weren’t Hoovervilles. They had streets and businesses, they weren’t just random shacks,” Sterling said. President Roosevelt visited the area twice, in 1934 and 1937, and Stebleton remembers getting to shake his hand. Few kitchens were without a calendar showing a photograph of Roosevelt. He was a popular president at Fort Peck. Another valuable source for the film was Lois Lonnquist, who wrote the book “50 Cents an Hour: The Building and Boomtowns of the Fort Peck Dam.” “She grew up in the boomtowns,” Sterling said. Powerful people

One thing that struck Sterling was the strength of the people working on the project. “It seems different than it is now,” Sterling said. “The fact is we are in a recession. But these were people who wanted to do something. They wanted to work. They didn’t want to go on welfare. There were different attitudes than society has now.” Stebleton compared her family’s trip west to John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel “The Grapes of Wrath” because they had their sewing machine tied on top of their jalopy as they crept into the Fort Peck area. In the film, though, Stebleton said she was happy to grow up in a boomtown and was sad when

the project was completed and their neighbors and friends all went their separate ways. Nobody had any more money than the next person and folks accepted that fact. (The impressive item in the article is that the pumps were made in Florida!) Red Bluff Diversion Dam replacement $190m project nears completion By Andrea Wagner -DN Staff Writer, redbluffdailynews.com, 05/19/2012

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About 20 people walked atop the massive fish screen structures of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam Fish Passage Improvement Project Thursday afternoon for a tour of the nearly complete facilities. The Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority could be delivering water into the canal from the Sacramento River as early as next week, said Bill Vanderwaal, the project manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, who helped lead the tour. The contractor is scheduled to finish the whole project, coming in under $190 million, in September, he said. The joint project between the Bureau of Reclamation and the canal authority began more than three years ago after a federal decision ordered the end of lowering the dam gates and the end of Lake Red Bluff. The Diversion Dam Fish Passage Improvement Project, in its final stages, is coming in on schedule and under the original budget estimates of $230 million.

The new pumping facility is meant to screen the water, which will be pumped into the canal while allowing threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon and other fish species to pass through to spawning grounds without disruption. The tour was a part of the Sacramento River Discovery Center's Thursday Evening program series. Bobie Hughes, the center's executive director began the evening with visual displays illustrating the history of the Diversion Dam and a photo album of pictures of the project since 2009. The tour began with a glance at the pumping station and electrical switchyard before attendees traipsed across the construction site in hardhats and neon vests. They walked across the top of the fish screens as Vanderwaal explained their construction. Workers were testing one of the nine Florida-made pumps as the tour group passed nearby. Workers were testing one of the nine Florida-made pumps as the tour group passed nearby. Some of the group commented that the steady hum of the pump was a welcome

change to the sounds of construction heard in the past few years. The pumps will be able to pump at 2,000 cubic feet of water per second and can expand up to 2,500 cubic feet per second. At the end of the tour, guests were able to get an up close look at three fish screen panels that will be stored for spares. In all, 63 panels, 10-foot by 15-foot, span some 1,200 feet through the river's edge. Hughes also explained about a mitigation segment of the project that will occur on the center's side of the river in the sand slough. Some 23 acres, currently sectioned off by orange plastic

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fencing, will be set up to fill with water and planted with native vegetation to make up for vegetation uprooted and displaced for the new construction. The effort is in place of having to pay an environmental mitigation bank for credits to relocate native plants and such, Vanderwaal said. Hughes offered a 153-page document outlining the entire mitigation process to anyone who wished to see it, she said. After it is created, the area will be evaluated regularly through 2017 to monitor its effectiveness and how many species survive each year. More information about the project as a whole is available at www.usbr.gov/mp/rbfish. (There are lots of things fishery agencies should butt out of and the safety of levees is one of them! Maybe required reading for the fish folks should be the story of the Kelly Barnes dam failure in Georgia!) California Fish and Game sues U.S. Army Corps over levee trees By Matt Weiser, May. 24, 2012 - sacbee.com The state of California sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday to fight rules that could eliminate trees on levees in Sacramento and statewide. The Department of Fish and Game filed the suit in federal court in Sacramento, alleging the Corps' levee maintenance policy violates the Endangered Species Act and other laws. Fish and Game initially sought to join a similar lawsuit filed last year by Friends of the River and other environmental groups, but was denied on technical grounds. The state Department of Water Resources also opposes the Corps policy but has not taken legal action. DWR estimates chopping down millions of trees in the Central Valley would cost $7.5 billion, diverting money from more important flood safety tasks. The Corps has said its policy is not new, and that it merely made uniform a national policy that had not been applied in California before. It allows only grass on levees, asserting that tree roots weaken levees. (A Perspective by a student – smart person and good history lesson!) MS Opinion MAINE COMPASS: In 175 years since Edwards Dam built, use of rivers has evolved Maine Sentinel, onlinesentinel.com, May 24, 2012 Zachary Bennett, May 24, 2012, Morning Sentinel, onlinesentinel.com In February 1834, a fight broke out about damming the Kennebec River. Petitions poured into the state Legislature, some predicting that the "business of the whole Kennebec County will be brought into bondage for all coming time." At issue was the largest dam project ever conceived in the United States. Dam proponents won the day, and the dam was completed in Augusta in 1837, 175 years ago this year. The debate about rivers in Maine, whether they should be a public or private resource, continues to this day. Until the early 1800s, access to a river and its fish was considered a "natural right" given to every citizen. By 1900, the situation had reversed; corporations controlled the power of the Kennebec and the fate of its fish. What caused this drastic change, and what can it tell us about current issues about Maine rivers? The 1834 controversy about the Edwards Dam (then known as the Kennebec or Augusta Dam) shows how people valued the Kennebec River 175 years ago. The livelihoods of local residents depended on the power, food and transportation the river provided. In this context, Mainers willingly encouraged industrial development along the Kennebec at the expense of fish populations.

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Contemporary environmental groups fail to mention that most 19th-century Mainers wanted dams in their towns. A dam raised water levels, and since water was the quickest mode of transportation in the early part of the century, deeper water meant wider access to national and global markets. Legislative records at the Maine State Archives show that residents of developing towns such as Waterville and Fairfield believed that almost everyone, from farmers and lumberman to entrepreneurs, "would be especially benefitted" from a dam in Augusta. The only losers in this enterprise were the fish, and the people who relied on them for sustenance. At the time, fishing for salmon was an important source of food, not a recreational activity. The state realized that "fisheries would be partially, if not wholly destroyed" by the dam, and required a fish ladder to be built. When a violent flood nearly destroyed the Edwards Dam in 1839, however, the vast majority of complaints came from farmers and tradesmen unable to pass the debris. Although a few people petitioned for the fish ladder to be rebuilt, their concerns came second to those of the more vocal and numerous lumberman, farmers and merchants. Fisherman thus found themselves in the least desirable position in a democracy -- the minority. The degraded environmental state of the Kennebec in the 20th century was not the result of corporations stealing the river, but instead from people forgetting their rights to it. By the time railroads replaced water as the most efficient form of transportation at the close of the 19th century, the annual migrations of salmon had been relegated to a fading memory. The employment made possible by the dam outweighed the rights of fish in the Kennebec's waters. Much of the environmental progress on the Kennebec in the last 50 years is the result of new values and economic priorities. The removal of the Edwards Dam in 1999 likely would have not been possible had it been still powering mills and employing local residents. With our state's reliance on tourism, the return of migrating fish presents the same economic opportunities that inspired Mainers to build Edwards Dam 175 years ago. Today, we hope Atlantic salmon will return to Maine because fishing is an activity with deep recreational, cultural and economic value. Instead of judging past generations for their perceived neglect of the river, we should realize that our values and economic priorities have changed since the early 1800s. Our desire to profit from the river remains, it has just taken a different form. Zachary Bennett, originally of Falmouth, is a graduate student in history at Miami University of Ohio.

HydroHydro: (Of course, the author is biased and left out key information from the report. The worst error in this report is that when the dam is in existence, adding hydro cannot add GHG. There is no mention of the 80,000 existing dams with no hydropower. Adding hydro or upgrading hydro does not add another reservoir where one exists. Dumb error! See table below and Section C. (Pg. 20) in the report: Table 1. Approximate Lifecycle GHG emission rate ranges by fuel type for electricity generation 2

Technology GHG emissions rates (kg CO2eq/MWh) Hydroelectric facility (run of river or non-tropical reservoir) 0.5 – 152 Hydroelectric facility (newly flooded reservoir only, boreal) 160 – 250 Hydroelectric facility (tropical reservoirs) 1300 – 3000 Natural gas-fired power plant 400 – 500 Oil-fired power plant 790 – 900 Coal-fired power plant 900 – 1200 Read this section starting on Page 20 of Report:

“C. Redeveloping, Repowering and Upgrading Existing Hydropower Sites”

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And finally:

Featured Report - Hydropower Greenhouse Gas Emissions 05/23/2012, Author: Travis Leipzig, rivernetwork.org Most utilities, state and federal agencies view hydropower as a source of clean, renewable electricity. Unfortunately, neither of these assumptions are necessarily accurate. Large hydro dam operations are some of the most water consumptive sources of electricity available, and, according to a new report (http://www.clf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Hydropower-GHG-Emissions-Feb.-14-2012.pdf) - depending on regional location - some hydroelectric facility full life cycle greenhouse gas emissions can rival that of natural gas power plants. Massachusetts based Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. recently released a report, Hydropower Greenhouse Gas Emissions: State of the Research, that looks at the full life cycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with hydroelectricity, from dam construction, to 100 years of facility operation. The report does not conclude that hydroelectricity in general pollutes more than traditional thermoelectric sources electricity (coal, natural gas, diesel), but the emissions really depend on the region that the dam is located and how long the dam has been in place. Some notable takeaway points from the report include:

• In the first several years of operation, hydro power greenhouse gas emissions exceeds that of some fossil fueled sources of electricity due to operations of dam construction and reservoir flooding causing the rapid decomposition of carbon heavy biomass (plant life, woody debris, etc.). • Carbon emissions associated with reservoir flooding and biomass decomposition varies widely by climate zone location of the hydro dam. Hydro facilities in tropical regions have much larger carbon footprints as the biomass that is flooded has absorbed much more carbon than biomass in boreal climate regions. • Over the full life cycle, hydroelectric facilities in boreal regions emit approximately 2/3 the amount of greenhouse gasses as do natural gas fired power plants. • Over the full life cycle, hydroelectric facilities in tropical regions can emit nearly double the greenhouse gasses as coal fired power plants.

Unfortunately hydroelectricity's carbon emissions are not the only environmentally unfriendly aspect to the commonly referred renewable energy source. River Network studies show that hydroelectricity uses approximately 440,000 gallons of water and consumes approximately 9,000

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of those gallons through evaporative losses for every megawatt hour of electricity produced. Additionally, as those 440,000 gallons of water pass through turbines to produce a megawatt hour of electricity, thousands of threatened fish and other aquatic wildlife species are killed or severely maimed by the turbines. And for the fish and other aquatic wildlife that don't make the fatal passing through the hydroelectric turbines, they become trapped upstream or downstream of the dam and lose massive stretches of river that they used to have for migration and spawning purposes. This migration and spawning disruption has and continues to severely impacted the number of salmon species left on the planet for future generations to appreciate. When environmental groups, utilities, state and federal agencies are talking about clean, renewable sources of energy, they need to look at the whole picture, not just running out of a mine-able element found underground; but look at greenhouse gas emissions, water withdrawal and consumption, and fish and wildlife habitats affected. If you think freshwater or salmon species won't someday run out, you better think again. True sources of clean and renewable electricity - though not entirely economically feasible for wide-scale deployment largely due to lack of federal support - are wind and photovoltaic solar electricity. These are the electricity sources that should be the focus of our nation's attention.  (Not too detailed but it gives the picture of pumped storage benefits to a power system) Electricity Storage Can Take Advantage of Daily Price Variations May 22, 2012 By U.S. Energy Information Administration, Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1cuvp)

Electricity storage technologies that can operate on timescales such as hours or days are often deployed at specific times of day to take advantage of variations in the price of electricity (see chart above, right). Storage operators can buy electricity when prices are lower (overnight or on weekends), store it, and then discharge or deliver it later, selling the stored electricity when prices are higher (daytime, weekdays). Following a previous article introducing electricity storage technologies and functions, this article focuses on technologies that operate on these longer timescales, or energy management technologies, and their two overarching benefits to the electric power system: flattening the daily load shape (see chart above, left) and integrating variable generation like wind. The first chart above illustrates the practice behind the concept of “load shifting” or “load leveling.” When electric demand is low, operators seek to increase the effective demand by moving power to storage. When demand is high, operators seek to decrease effective demand by using stored energy to generate electricity. Pumped hydroelectric storage is one example of this approach. Overnight, a reversible hydroelectric turbine is powered by low-cost electricity from the grid, using

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it to pump water “uphill”, to a reservoir at a higher elevation. During the daytime peak hours, this water is then released back “downhill” and through the hydroelectric turbine to produce electricity, which is sold to the grid at the higher, on-peak prices. This load-shifting function has beneficial effects on the electric power system:

o Lowering the effective peak demand on the system can reduce the requirement for peaking generators, which are particularly expensive to operate. With a lower effective peak demand, operators can defer infrastructure improvements, such as new generators or transmission additions.

o Using storage to create a higher effective demand overnight allows more facilities to operate as baseload resources, enhancing their operating efficiency. Often, power plants have to lower their output or shut down entirely overnight to avoid oversupplying the grid with power. There can be significant efficiency losses and costs associated with reduced output or temporary shutdown of baseload plants.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Renewable generators such as wind and solar often have significant variability in their output over the course of the day. Concentrating solar plants can store solar heat in an oil or molten salt, allowing them to continue generating power through cloud passage or after the sun sets. In most locations, wind resources are more available overnight, when demand is low. Storage facilities might store wind-generated electricity overnight, when the wind is most available, and release electricity when demand is higher—time-shifting the supply to meet the demand. Pumped hydroelectric is the most prevalent energy management storage technology, with 22 Gigawatts (GW) of capacity installed in the United States. Other technologies are also in use. Compressed air technology uses low-cost electricity to store pressurized air underground, and then releases that pressure later to support the operation of a combustion turbine. Some batteries, particularly flow batteries (based on liquid rather than solid chemistries), have the characteristics needed for energy management. The Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Database currently lists four demonstration-type flow battery-based projects (as of April 2012). Thermal energy storage often takes the form of chilling or heating large amounts of water (or another heat transfer medium) overnight for use during the day. The value proposition for energy management technologies can often be made based on the opportunity to take advantage of daily price variations. However, available technologies are limited at the utility-scale and costs can be high.

o Pumped hydroelectric storage facilities have detailed site-specific topography and geology requirements and can be difficult to site. The last pumped hydroelectric facility to come online in the United States was in 2002, with the prior facility built seven years earlier.

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o Compressed-air storage has similar issues, requiring specific underground geologic structures in which to store large amounts of compressed air. There are currently only two compressed-air storage facilities in the world, one in Alabama, built in 1991, and another in Germany; a recent effort to develop a site in Iowa was terminated due to lack of appropriate geology.

o Battery technology is a dynamic field for research, development, and demonstration. However, due to relatively high costs, batteries have only recently been seen as candidates for most utility-scale applications.

This article was originally published on the Energy Information Administration website. WALTERS: Why isn't hydro power considered 'green' in California? Hydroelectric power is a major source of California's electricity. But power from large hydro plants like this one at the Shasta dam is not considered 'green' in California. pressdemocrat.com, May 21, 2012 A major component of California’s crusade against global warming, one started by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and embraced by successor Jerry Brown, is the legal mandate to have 33 percent of electric power sales from “renewable sources” by 2020. The latest version of the mandate, signed by Brown last year, defines biomass, thermal, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, fuel cells with renewable fuels, small hydroelectric projects, digester gases, landfill gases, ocean wave and tidal current generation, ocean thermal, and conversion of municipal solid waste into clean-burning fuel as officially blessed. The list obviously excludes California’s largest single source of electric power — plants burning natural gas — and, of course, coal-burning plants in other states. Converting hydrocarbons to electricity releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It also excludes nuclear power, which doesn’t emit carbon and accounts for about 11 percent of California’s electricity, but does have an unresolved waste disposal problem. The more curious exclusion, however, is large-scale hydroelectric power — generators, usually connected to dams that use falling water to spin turbines. Hydro, which doesn’t emit carbon dioxide, already accounts for about 12 percent of the state’s power supply, according to the state Energy Commission. So, one might wonder, if the goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions why don’t we count hydro against the carbon reduction mandate? What, after all, could be more renewable than water power? The answer: Political correctness. Environmentalists dislike big dams because they’re big, because they slow the seasonal free flows that river rafters like, and because some, but not all, interfere with fish spawning. Those may — or may not — be reasons not to build new dams. But what about the dozens of dams that already exist? It’s a good thing they do exist, because life as we know it in California would be impossible without dams and reservoirs to capture seasonal flows, prevent flooding and supply water to homes, factories and farms during the dry season. Those dams also generate a lot of energy, so what would be wrong with counting the power they already generate against the non-carbon energy mandate, rather than pretending they don’t exist? Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, proposed a step in that direction with legislation that would have subtracted hydropower before calculating the 33 percent mandate on the remaining power supply. However, the bill — supported by utilities but opposed by environmental groups and generators of approved sources of renewable power — was trashed in the Senate Natural Resources Committee. It’s another victory of ideology over rationality. Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee.

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EnvironmentEnvironment::      (There’s nothing like one biased opinion commenting on another biased opinion!) Critics need to distinguish Klamath dam removal facts from fantasy By Curtis Knight, California Trout, Siskiyou Daily News, siskiyoudaily.com, May 23, 2012 Mount Shasta, Calif. - It's been said that people have a right to their opinions but not their own facts, and in the Klamath River dam removal issue, it's critical we differentiate between the two. In a March 2 Siskiyou Daily News article, "whistleblower" Paul Houser said he didn't have complaints about the science underlying the Klamath. And as a matter of verifiable fact, the whistleblower complaint filed by Houser refers only to a press release and a short summary document, not the science underlying them. In fact, he was quoted as saying, "The expert panel reports look pretty good." Suddenly, all this appears to have changed. In the midst of a tour paid for by dam removal opponents, Houser's allegations have evolved far beyond that covered in his whistleblower documents, and in the interest of separating fact from opinion, it's important to examine them. First, Houser is not a fisheries biologist, and when he says that dam removal seems "extreme," that's an opinion, not scientifically supportable fact. In one of his first interviews, he suggested removing only one or two of the dams, a bizarre course of action which had many scientists scratching their heads in wonder. Today, he has offered no scientific basis for that statement, probably because it's not scientifically supportable. It's a statement of bias, not fact. In other words, Houser is doing exactly what he's accusing others of - offering a politically-driven opinion in place of science-driven decision making. The Department of Interior has managed transparent and open decision-making processes. There have been dozens of public meetings, thousands of public comments received and responded to, and 6,000 pages of peer-reviewed science accumulated to examine the situation. And yes, the science and the facts tell us:

• Dam removal remains primarily an economic and not political issue: Upgrading the dams to current standards will cost PacifiCorp (and ratepayers) two times as much as removing them, and they'll operate at a $20 million annual loss. Ratepayers will pay far more if the dams are retained.

• The dams are privately owned, and PacifiCorp supports the KBRA/KHSA removal process.

• Instead of economic devastation promised by opponents, dam removal will bring 4,600 jobs to the county and increase the area's sustainable outdoor recreation industry,

Contrary to "facts" offered up by some, the dams in question provide zero irrigation function, degrade water quality (instead of improving it) and offer no significant flood control function (all verified by peer-reviewed science which is not in question by Mr. Houser or anyone else). When Houser suggests dam removal is an "uncontrolled experiment," his opinions are again leaking out. Dam removal projects on many other rivers - including those with sediment issues far more challenging than the Klamath's - have gone better than expected. Nobody can predict the weather patterns and flows the years after dam removal, but there exists a sizable body of scientifically derived, peer-reviewed work about dam removal. It's hardly an uncontrolled experiment. Finally, it's a little ironic that Mr. Houser - in the midst of a speaking tour paid for by opponents of dam removal- is apparently happy to impugn the ethics of other scientists by stating that "scientists are often biased based on who they are paid by." Dam removal is the preferred alternative for the Klamath River because the economics and fisheries science - all of which is publicly available and has been peer-reviewed multiple times - says it is. Feds approve operational changes to No. Ariz. Dam

May 23, 2012, ktvn.com Flagstaff, Ariz. (AP) - The federal government has approved two programs to further test high flows in the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and help boost the native fish population. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the programs Wednesday for Glen Canyon Dam, which sits near the Arizona-Utah border. Since the 1960s, the dam in Page has blocked 90% of sediment from the Colorado River from flowing downstream, making the water less suitable for native fish. It also has impacted hydroelectricity, beach recreation and archaeological sites. Salazar says one program establishes a long-term protocol for high-flow releases through 2020 that will simulate natural flood conditions, while meeting water and power needs. The second one focuses on protecting native fish, like the endangered humpback chub, from nonnative predators and improving habitat.

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iThis compilation of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and water resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for non-profit and educational purposes only.

1Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

6/08/2012

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“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Castoro Cellars Merlot 2008 “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson Other StuffOther Stuff:  (Something to ponder!) This is the political season, and the scheduled expiration of the federal PTC can lead to a bit of (probably temporary) political correctness for hydropower. ‘Low-Impact’ Hydroelectricity: A Flirt with Political Correctness?

- Institute for Energy Research Saturday, June 2, 2012

“Hydroelectric dams alter riparian ecosystems profoundly. Birds fly into windmills. Geothermal and biomass plants are not emission free. Even solar generation is not beyond criticism. Yet environmentalists have become nearly as dependent on a steady supply of electrical energy as everyone else. What, then, is an environmentalist to do?”

- Rich Ferguson, “Electric Industry Restructuring and Environmental Stewardship,” The Electricity Journal, July 1999, p. 27. The supply-side strategy of critics of fossil fuels ends almost where it begins. It is composed of wind power, on-grid solar power, and not much more.[1] Nuclear power, the one mass alternative to carbon-based energy for electricity, has been repeatedly rejected by the mainstream “DC” environmentalists. Biofuels for the transportation market, led by ethanol, has fallen into disfavor because of life-cycle environmental costs. Politically-correct energy amounts today in the U.S. to about two percent of total U.S. energy usage and three percent of electricity generation. One renewable, air-emission-free alternative for electricity generation is hydropower, a very mature energy resource.[2] But is hydro “politically correct”? Such is hardly an idle question given that the Interior Department is trying to decide whether to decommission 155 MW of capacity on four dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. Power customers of PacificCorp are already paying a 2 percent surcharge to fund the probable decommissioning.

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

Quote of Note: “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” - Plato

2Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Accepted—Then Rejected As late as in the 1980s, hydro was cited if not lauded for its air-emission-free attributes by the environmental lobby. “Hydropower alone effectively displaces 578 million tons of carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants each year, equivalent to over 10 percent of total 1987 emissions from fossil fuels,” noted Cynthia Shea of the Worldwatch Institute.[3] But in the same decade, other environmental tradeoffs with hydro caused pause. “Small hydro, once the darling of clean-energy advocates, fell out of favor when environmentalists realized it meant building dams,” noted William Tucker. “Local groups usually oppose those facilities and environmental groups no longer promote them in their literature.”[4] Energy journalist Daniel Kaplan writing in 1992 explored the reversal:

A strange thing happened to hydropower on its way to the sustainable energy ball: the party’s environmentalist hosts withdrew their invitation. Long a favorite of sustainable energy groups opposed to more traditional fuels . . . in the last 10 years environmentalists have turned on hydropower. . . . Suddenly hydro is being mentioned in the same breath with coal, oil and nuclear–precisely the fuels hydro, touted early on as an environmentally benign energy source, was to replace. Today environmentalists talk of ‘non-hydro renewables’ like wind, solar and biomass.[5]

Jonathan Adler similarly noted: In the late 1970s, hydropower was hailed as a clean, renewable source of power. Although environmental groups opposed many large dam projects, hydropower was praised as the wave of the future. No longer. Today hydropower is conspicuously absent from most lists of ‘green’ power. . . . Talk of new hydro projects, whether here or abroad, is verboten in environmental circles.[6]

Cheap Energy: Per Se Bad? Part of the reversal came from an ‘energy-is-bad,’ and ‘less energy/higher prices/more conservation undertow. Stated one environmentalist back in 1981:

Bargain-basement pricing of hydroelectricity at a time of rising energy costs sent the wrong signal to the consumer, encouraging waste and creating a voracious demand for electricity when conservation, not production, is the best energy investment. . . . The price of hydroelectric resources needs to reflect the fact that the world has entered a new energy era. [7]

Such brings to mind the infamous statement of Amory Lovins in 1977: If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.[8]

New Hope? And so it was with some surprise that Stephen Lacey at the anti-fossil-fuel blogsite ClimateProgress resurrected the goodness of hydropower as a reason to extend the Production Tax Credit, a federal tax subsidy due to expire at the end of this year. In “Congressional Uncertainty Threatens 12,000-30,000 MW of Possible Hydropower,” Lacey cites a recent report from Oak Ridge National Laboratory that identified more than 50,000 potential sites that could produce a megawatt or more with dams of several feet to 770 feet. In all, 12,000 MW of capacity could be built, adding 11 percent to existing hydro (and pump storage) capacity of 96 GW. “Topping it all off, the Department of Interior recently issued an analysis showing that 268 MW of hydro capacity could be developed at waste water treatment facilities around the country.” With another 103 MW of wastewater conduit potential, “there’s still a lot of low-impact hydro available.” Lacey gives an environmentalist’s blessing:

Importantly, many of the monetary costs and environmental impacts of dam construction have already been incurred at NPDs [non-powered dams], so adding power to the existing dam structure can often be achieved at lower cost, with less risk, and in a shorter

3Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

timeframe than development requiring new dam construction. The abundance, cost, and environmental favorability of NPDs, combined with the reliability and predictability of hydropower, make these dams a highly attractive source for expanding the nation’s renewable energy supply.

But, he adds, the expiration of the tax credit threatens this too-good-to-be-true addition to renewable, emission-free capacity: “The industry says this is already starting to stifle development of new, innovative projects designed to “re-power” facilities and add to our hydro generation.” And guess what—federal overregulation is culpable too. “Another issue is permitting,” Lacey states. “In order to construct even the smallest projects, developers must work through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, State Environmental Departments, State Historic Preservation Departments, and many more.” He adds:

Each of these agencies has an important role to play individually — but the cumulative impact weighs down small hydro and makes projects prohibitively expensive. According to one small developer, federal and state permitting adds up to $2,000 per kilowatt for projects under 1 MW. That’s two thirds of the total installed cost of a 1 MW solar PV system.

This is the political season, and the scheduled expiration of the federal PTC can lead to a bit of (probably temporary) political correctness for hydropower. Still, it is a breath of fresh air to hear that “We have tens of Gigawatts of hydro potential left to harness in this country, much of which can be done at existing facilities with minimal additional environmental impact.” Conclusion It is fair to label the purveyors of wind-and-solar as demand-side conservationists dressed in supply-side garb. For less supply means higher prices and more (forced) conservation. Such is called conservationism, the doctrine of less usage for its own sake via government intervention.

[1] Off-grid solar is really a free-market, not political, energy. It introduces electricity in remote locations where there is no plug-in option. As such, this starter energy does not displace emissions for environmental benefit. In fact, off-grid solar is the bridge fuel to carbon-based energy as virgin areas graduate to diesel generators for more electricity at less cost and more reliability. [2] “It was during the nineteenth century that hydropower became a source of electricity as well as of mechanical power. In 1820, the French engineer Benoit Fourneyron invented the turbine. The turbine was to the waterwheel what the propeller was to the side paddle—a submersible, compact and more efficient machine for energy exchange.” Daniel Deudney, “Rivers of Energy: The Hydropower Potential,” Worldwatch Paper 44, Worldwatch Institute, June 1981, p. 7. [3] Cynthia Shea, “Renewable Energy: Today’s Contribution, Tomorrow’s Promise,” Worldwatch Paper 81, Worldwatch Institute, January 1988, p. 6. [4] William Tucker, “California Unplugged,” The American Spectator, April 2001, p. 34. [5] Daniel Kaplan, “Is the Green Promise of Hydro Fading to Brown?” Energy Daily, December 7, 1992, p. 1. [6] Jonathan Adler, “The Problem with Wind Power,” The Weekly Standard, October 25, 1999, p. 18. [7] Daniel Deudney, “Rivers of Energy: The Hydropower Potential,” Worldwatch Paper 44, Worldwatch Institute, June 1981, pp. 41-42. [8] Amory Lovins in “The Mother Earth – Playboy Interview,” Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22. Lovins was hardly alone in this less-is-more view of energy. Stated Paul Ehrlich and Richard Harriman: “Power is much too cheap. It should certainly be made more expensive and perhaps rationed, in order to reduce its frivolous use.” Ehrlich and Harriman, How To Be a Survivor (Rivercity, Mass: Rivercity Press, 1971, 1975), p. 72.

DDaammss::    

4Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

(The USBR describes the dam as follows: with a steel membrane on the upstream face. The

.

The dam embankment is of rolled gravel fill dam is 230 feet high and has a crest length of 1,326 feet. The reservoir has a total capacity of 196,500 acre-feet.) El Vado Dam is unique antique Published: 29 May 2012, Kim Holland, krqe.com Albuquerque (KRQE) - El Vado Dam in northern New Mexico is a unique antiqueBuilt nearly 80 years ago, the Rio Arriba County dam is constructed of numerous steel plates that hold back the water. It is one of only four steel dams in the world, but the only one still working today. The problem? It leaks. “The metal has a tendency to expand and contract and causes some cracks,” said Victor Salazar, an engiReclamation. “Anywhere from a hairline to about an inch-and-a-half in diameter.” The cracks allow water to seep out the back of the dam and present a unique problem for the reclamationbureau. “We’re doing everything we can to keep this dam operational,” said Mary Carlson, spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation. Recently, divers made repairs to a crack that extended 30 feet down under the water. They packed a tarred fiber called oakum into the crathen used a large magnet to hold it all in place. Once the water drops, crews will be able to weld the steel for a more permanent fix. Before divers began working on that crack, it seeped 35 gallons per second, which translates into 3 million gallons a day and 21 million gallons a week. The bureau tries to channel most of the seepage back into the Rio Chama. The 1,300-foot long dam was built by the Rio Grande

neer with the U.S. Bureau of

ck,

Conservancy District in 1935 and created the El Vado Reservoir, located near Heron Lake south of the Colorado border. Carlson said engineers back in the 30s chose steel because it was cheap. “They were kind of experimenting with different materials and they decided to try steel,” she said. “It was cost-effective – much more cost-effective – than concrete at the time, and it was a little more sturdy than wood.” Replacing the dam would cost millions. So the Bureau of Reclamation spends about $300,000 a year to maintain and operate the dam, according to theRio Chama and helps with flood control, irrigation and drainage in the Rio Grande Valley.

orps: Fort Peck Dam repair may top $225 million

bureau. The dam supplies water to the

ntana's Fort Peck Dam following epic flooding

CPublished May 30, 2012, Associated Press, foxnews.com Billings, Mont. – Proposed repairs to bolster Moalong the Missouri River last year would cost more than $225 million, according to cost estimates released Wednesday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But with money short, Corps officials acknowledged they are able to afford only $46 million for damage assessments and repair work for now. Most of that will be spent on repairs to the dam's spillway. Record snowfalls and massive spring rains in Wyoming and Montana last year prompted the release of unprecedented volumes of water from the Corps' six Missouri River dams. The torrent damaged Fort Peck's spillway gates and eroded areas downstream from the dam, located at the top of the Missouri River system. The most expensive repairs outlined by the Corps' engineering consultants would bolster the spillway so it could handle releases of 265,000 cubic feet of water per second. That's more than four times the peak release of almost 66,000 during last year's flooding. Fort Peck Project Manager John Daggett said the proposed repairs are needed to ensure the spillway can be used to safely release water.

5Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Montana Gov. B

proves safety and storarian Schweitzer said Wednesday that the state would support any work that

ge capacity for the dam. But the Democrat added that the high-end imestimates offered by the Corps appeared unrealistic given federal budget constraints. "The Army Corps of Engineers oftentimes has grandiose plans. But the checks are written by Congress and there seems to be a diminishing appetite for borrowing more money from China and giving it to the Corps of Engineers," Schweitzer said. "In tough times, you don't buy another ranch and build a new barn. You just make sure the roof keeps water out of your hay." The 2,341-mile Missouri River is managed by the Corps and flows from Montana through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. The agency has earlier estimated that last year's flooding caused $630 million in damage to levees, dams and channels built to control the river. At the lower end of the cost alternatives for Fort Peck's spillway, Daggett says $25 million would allow for repairs to damaged concrete along the spillway chute and along the "wing walls" where the structure drains into the Missouri. Work on damage to the spillway gates already is underway. The most expensive option from the consultants entails the construction of a huge concrete "stilling basin" below the spillwayThat would capture released water, reduce erosion and better protect against an uncontrolled release that could destroy the dam, Daggett said. "We're going to have to seek additional funding for the ultimate fix, but we're going to have to do as much as we can with the money we have."

.

The $245 million figure does not include any work that could be needed on a concrete drainage system beneath the spillway. Testing to determine whether that drainage system is working properly is planned for the week of Sept. 4. As part of the testing, the Corps plans to release water at between 3,000 and 30,000 cubic feet per second at periodic intervals over four days FEMA highlights need for dam safety at Md. dam M

.

re stressing the importance of ay 31, 2012, wfmj.com

Rockville, Md. (AP) - Federal Emergency Management officials adam safety. Federal, state and local officials are marking National Dam Safety Awareness Day on Thursday at Lake Needwood Dam in Rockville with a commemoration of the Johnstown Flood. That flood killed more than 2,000 people when a dam failed in Pennsylvania on May 31, 1889. Officials will discuss a strategic plan for national dam safety that will be released soon and tour the dam after a commemoration ceremony. FEMA says there are more than 4,000 deficient dams in the United States. Officials say that number includes more than 1,800 dams that could cause catastrophic loss of life if they failed. (It’s also a pretty good piece of scenery aside from the water rights issue!) Lily Lake dam to be repaired By John Cordsen, Trail-Gazette, 06/02/2012, eptrail.com Rocky Mountain National Park will be repairing the Lily Lake Dam instead of removing it. This after a February public scoping of the project revealed that the park is legally bound to retain the water rights in Lily Lake and the dam is essential to this process, in other words, no dam, no water rights. "Therefore, the only option available to the park is to repair the dam," said park superintendent Vaughn Baduring his May report to the Estes Park boaof trustees. Baker said the planning, designing aon the dam should begin this fall, with the work The work is required after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation rated the Lily Lake Dam, located in

ker rd

bnd environmental work is ongoing. He said work eing funded by the NPS Dam Safety Program.

Rocky Mountain National Park, as a high-hazard dam. Failure of the dam was not imminent, which gave park staff time to evaluate long-term solutions, which ultimately became one option because of the legal requirements to maintain the water rights. Until work is done, the dam wiregularly inspected and monitored, and a pump has been purchased to lower the lake level in the

ll be

6Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

event of a significant weather event. The Lily Lake Dam is situated at the headwaters of Fish Creek, which flows into Lake Estes in Estes Park. Fish Creek is about 5 miles in length and the elevation difference between Lily Lake and Lake Estes is about 1,500 feet. If the dam were to fail, the ensuing floodwaters could result in the loss of life and property along Fish Creek. The lake, located along Highway 7, has become a popular recreational area in Rocky Mountain National Park. The lake sits in a beautiful mountain setting, surrounded by an accessible trail. The lake ispopular fishing spot and is stocked with greenback cutthroat trout, a federally listed threatened species.

a

HHyyddrroo:    (Well, the Klamath River taHoopa T

kes another bazaar turn) ribe asks FERC to resume relicensing process to speed removal of

Klamath Dams Jeff Barnard AP Environmental Writer, May 30, 2012, therepublic.com Frustrated that a deal to remove a string of hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River in Northern California has stalled, the Hoopa Tribe has petitioned federal authorities to restart the bureaucratic process in hopes it will get the dams out of the river more quickly. Tribal attorTom Schlosser said Tuesday the current agreement is hopelessly bogged down in Congress an

ney d

going back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission offers the best chance to open up the river for struggling salmon and to improve water quality. Tribal attorney Tom Schlosser said Tuesday the current agreement is hopelessly bogged down in Congress and going back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission offers the best chance to open up the river for struggsalmon and to improve water quality. PacifiCorp, the Portland, Ore.-based utility that owns the dams, says it wants to stick with the current plan. Dam removal is part of the agreements signed in the Oregon Capitol two years ago to end a century of water battles in the Klamath Basin. (The Tribe may be right about Congress never coughing up the money to remove the dams. The

recedents are against doing what the Tribe wants and ending annual licenses)

ling

pTribe Wants End To Short-Term Klamath Dam Relicensing May 29, 2012 | OPB, earthfix.opb.org, by Amelia Templeton A Northern California Indian tribe is

reatening to shake up the Klamath thBasin agreement. The Hoopa Valley Tribe is pressing for a halt to short-term relicensing of four dams on the river — a move meant to force a utility to take them down on its own. The move comes as the tribe says a two-part restoration agreement and dam removal deal for thriver is stalled. The Klamath River anlargest tributary, the Trinity River, flow through the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s reservation. The tribe says the four damupriver contribute to toxic algae bloomrestore healthy salmon runs on the Trinity has signed a deal, the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, that would remove the dams by 2020. The KHSA is linked to a broader river restoration and water rights settlement plan that must be approved by both the Secretary of Interior and by Congress.

e d its

s

R

s and salmon diseases, and have undermined its efforts to iver. Power Company PacifiCorp owns the dams and

Copco dam, on the upper Klamath River, is one of four PacifiCorp dams slated for removal Credit: Amelia Templeton

7Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Thomas Schlosser, an attorney for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, says the tribe doubts Congress will ever approve the current dam removal deal. “That legislation isn’t going to pass. It subordinates

dian water rights. It costs 800 million bucks. And it has a whole lot of other controversial Inprovisions,” he says. The tribe wants federal regulators to stop extending PacifiCorp’s short-term license to operate the dams, or to require the company to install fish ladders. Bob Gravely, a spokesman for PacifiCorp, says the plan to remove the dams by 2020 is still on track, and upgrading dams slated for removal isn’t practical. “It’s too soon to scrap the whole deal because congress hasn’t passed this in an election year in 5 or 6 months,” Gravely says. In the meanthe says, PacifiCorp is spending about $3 million a year on interim measures to improve waquality and fish habitat. Stampede Dam moves step closer to height inc

ime, ter

rease By Jenell Schwab, Sierra Sun, sierrasun.com Truckee, Calif. — A proposal to raise the 239-foot high Stampede Reservoir Dam by 11.5 feet will have no significant impact on the environment surrounding it, officials announced recently. If the federal Bureau of Reclamation-proposed modifications are completed, the dam — located about 14 miles northeast of Truckee — will have increased holding capacity, ensuring it canwithstand a 250,000 year flood. Currently, the dam is certified for a 75,000 year flood. “We are talking about an event where a heaBureau's Natural Resources Specialist Andwhich Meier referred, drop rain at high elevarainfall and snowmelt downstream all at once. They are known meteorological events on the West Coast ofAmerica; the largest, most recent event occurred in the Sierra Nevada during the winter of 1997. “1997 was a bigevent, but it didn't cause a dam to fail,” said Pete Lucero, public affairs officer with BLM. “The magnitude of event we are concerned with would cause a failure at Stampede, overwhelm Boca Dam and then run unconstrained into Reno. We estimate the flow would be one million cubic feeper second, and the increase of water depth to be 40-60 feet.”

r

North

t

vy rain falls on a maximum snowpack,” said the ea Meier. Pineapple Express storms, like the one to tions in the winter, melt the snowpack and send the

Stampede Dam would be raised by building two walls with compacted earth made with materials taken from local sources, said Lucero. The modifications would be designeonly to

d prevent catastrophic flooding from dam failure and

ould not allow for an increase of permanent water

r

s last

wstorage, Meier said, or in any way affect the outcomes of the more frequent events such as 500-year or 1,000-yeaflood events. Meier said the project would cost approximately $30 million, a price tag that drew criticism from some residents during the public review procesfall. The bureau countered the criticism by saying the risk,however slight, to lives and property downstream warrants the project's approval. “We don't know when or if it will happen. That's not to say it will or won't happen 249,000 years from now, or if it will happen next year,” said Lucero. The “Finding of No Significant Impact” declaration allows the project to move forward without a mandate to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, a

The dam details

Completed in 1970, Stampede Dam has a

height of 239 feet and a crest length of 1,511

feet. The reservoir provides water primarily

for fishery enhancement along the Truckee

River and operation of the Pyramid Lake

Fishway facilities. The dam is owned and

operated by the federal Bureau of

Reclamation.

The USBR is the largest wholesale water

supplier and the second largest producer of

hydroelectric power in the United States,

with operations and facilities in the 17

Western States. Its facilities also provide

substantial flood control, recreation, and fish

and wildlife benefits. More information can

be found at www.usbr.gov.

8Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

roject

100 years of service

.C., began producing electricity, William Howard Taft ad

,

l

ent

on

tility

mers and

m and hydroelectric plant. Construction baused by a 1908 flood, the plant went into commerci

nnel

of

ice

on the

like a

more extensive planning document often required by the planning process. From here, the pwill be referred to the Reclamation Commissioner in Washington, D.C. It will then be reviewedand put before Congress for an approval of funding, Meier said. (It’s amazing just how may hydro projects have passed the 100 year mark and just keep on ticking.) Blewett Falls Hydroelectric Development achievesBy: Progress Energy Release | SCNow, May 31, 2012, www2.scnow.com Raleigh, N.C. -- When Progress Energy Carolinas’ Blewett Falls Hydroelectric Development in Lilesville, Nwas president of the United States and a loaf of brecost one Liberty Head Nickel. On June 1, the 22-megawatt (MW) plant, located along the Pee Dee Riverwill observe 100 years of service – only the second Progress Energy power plant to mark a centenniaanniversary. “For a century, the Blewett hydroelectric plant has served the region with safe, reliable and affordable electricity,” Bill Johnson, chairman, presidand CEO of Progress Energy, said. “Achieving this milestone is a testament to the hard work and dedicatiof hundreds of current and former Blewett Plant employees. Throughout the changes in the electric uindustry during the last 100 years, Blewett has been a dependable source of clean energy for our custocommunities.” Around 1900, Hugh MacRae of Wilmington, N.C., selected the Blewett Falls site for the construction of a daclargest hydroelectric plants at the time. The plant persevered through another setback inSeptember 1945 when a historic flood caused water to rise 20 feet above the operating floor, completely submerging all generators. Despite major damage, employees restored service to several units within three weeks. Today, the plant has 10 employees with additional persoshared with the utility’s nearby Tillery hydroelectric plant. Blewett produces on average about 129,281 megawatt-hours per year, which is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand8,978 homes. In addition to six hydroelectric generating units, Progress Energy Carolinas’ Blewett site in Anson County also houses four-combustion turbine units (added in 1971) with a total capacity of 52 MW. Progress Energy owns and operates four hydroelectric plants along rivers in North Carolina. Together, these stations provide 225 MW of reliable, emission-free generation to the region. The 4-MW Marshall Plant, located on the French Broad River in Marshall, N.C., consists of two hydroelectric generating units and celebrated a century of servin 2010. The 87-MW Tillery Plant, located on the Pee Dee River in Mt. Gilead, N.C., began commercial operation in 1928, with additions in 1960. The 112-MW Walters Plant, located Pigeon River in Waterville, N.C., began commercial operation in 1930. The hydroelectric generation is a vital part of the mix of resources Progress Energy Carolinas uses to meet theneeds of 1.5 million households and businesses 24 hours a day. The mix also includes nuclear plants and facilities fueled by natural gas, coal and oil. The company also purchases and distributes electricity generated by solar facilities and other renewable technologies. (This is a new on me. I don’t know what this contraption is supposed to accomplish. Looksfancy old time undershot waterwheel!)

egan in 1905 and, despite a delay al operation June 1, 1912. It was one of the

Great River Turbine is a Gigantic Hydroelectric Energy Generator by Michael Jantzen, 06/01/12, http://inhabitat.com/great-river-turbine-is-a-gigantic-hydroelectric-energy-generator/

The great river turbine is a conceptual design for a large (one hundred foot diameter) stainless steel water turbine developed to function as a tourist attraction and as a powerful electricity generator. electricity is generated by the current of the river as it flows through the turbine rotating its twelve massive blades, which in turn

The

activate a powerful generator. The stainless steel turbine is mounted on a specially designed, public access moored barge.

WWaatteerr:   (Now, this is a big deal!)

River treaty consultations begin ca

l landmark

ColumbiaCBC News, May 28, 2012, cbc. Consultations on the future of the Columbia

9Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

River Treaty, an internationaagreement between the United States and Canada, began Monday in the Kootenays. The agreement, signed in 1961, led to the flooding of the once agriculturally-rich Columbia Valley. Four dams were built; the Duncan Dam, Mica Dam and Keenleyside Dam in Canada, and the Libby Dam in the U.S. "It impacted many lives, it impacted our environment, but it also brought us economic benefits," says Deb Kozak, chair of the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments’ Committee. Now, 50 years later, B.C. and the U.S. have the option to renegotiate the agreement and negotiate issues like water levels on B.C. lakes, but before doing so, the treaty committee is asking the people of the Kootenays for their input. "The treaty doesn't terminate but if eithewishes to terminate there is a 10-year clause that says in 2014 you can serve notice. So we aeducating people in the basin about the treaty. We're educating them about the benefits, some ofthe detriments that have happened and we're asking people what we should do in future," said Kozak. "They're very interested in what people think, what people have experienced. Are the benefits working? Are there things we can make better or are things just fine?" Consultations began Monday in Jaffray, B.C., and will stop in cities and towns across the Kootenays through June.

r side re

The Duncan Dam, in the Purcell Mountains, is one of four dams included in the Columbia River Treaty. (Government of B.C.)

10Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and water resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted iThis compilation

material herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for non-profit and educational purposes only.

1Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

6/15/2012

i

“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Castoro Cellars Petite Syrah Shell Creek 2009 “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson Other StuffOther Stuff:  Renewable energy costs falling- agency June 07, 2012, evwind.es Excerpts: -------------. “Hydropower is a mature technology and the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of is generally low. The LCOE for large hydropower projects typically ranges from USD 0.02 to USD 0.19/kWh assuming a 10% cost of capital, making the best hydropower power projects the most cost competitive generating option available today.” -------------------------. Read full article here: http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=18996

DamsDams::    (More dam removal news. Such scenic dams – it would a shame to see them go. The only problem with this article is that many of the dams are already failed structures or not even dams. But, unless it’s a hydro site – Maybe they should go! Oh, BTW, the Curtis pond dam is really already gone because it failed.) Ipswich River dams may be going By Jennie Oemig, Ipswich Chronicle, wickedlocal.com, May 31, 2012 Ipswich, Mass. - The Ipswich River Watershed Association has been working closely with dam owners, state and federal agencies and funding sources to study removing three Ipswich River

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

Quote of Note: “When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.” - Franklin P. Adams

2Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

dams, the Ipswich Mills Dam, the South Middleton Dam and the Curtis Pond Dam. Brian Kelder, restoration program manager with the Ipswich River Watershed Association, said the goal of the three projects, which are at different stages, is to improve aquatic habitat conditions in the Ipswich River Watershed. There are 70 dams and 500 road crossings in the watershed, which may or may not be serving as partial or complete barriers for some species of fish. Kelder said the river association has been working to get some volunteers together to survey the culverts and other roadways to find othe dams within the watershed were built hundreds of years ago. "Very few are actively setheir initial purpose," Kelder said. "And many are in disrepair."

ut just how much of a barrier they are. Most of rving

am owners in Massachusetts are responsible for upkeep and maintenance and are liable if the

Ddam were to fail. Kelder said many dam owners who no longer use the dams or don't wantthe expense and risk associated with them often seek to have them removed. Dams can also exclude migratory fish and other species from large portions of their historical habitat, which severely limits distribution and abundance for certain species, including river herring, American shad and brook trout. "More dam owners across the state and the country are starting to realize that these deteriorating structures create considerable financial and safety liability wcausing ongoing ecological harm," Kelder said.

hile

"For these reasons, more and more dams are being removed from rivers when they are no longer needed. We hope to see the same trend take hold in the Ipswich." Kelder said the Ipswich MDam, which is owned by the Town of Ipswich and located behind EBSCO, is the subject of a preliminary study, which will influence the town'sdecision on what to do with the dam. "Specifically, the study is looking at colevels upstream of the dam, the dam's effect on ueffects of removing the dam on foundation of an old mill building adjacent to the dam," Kelder said. Kelder said the study is underway and should be complete by fall. "The results of this studwill help the town of Ipswich decide whether to undertake a more detailed study to further investigate the option of removing the Ipswich Mills Dam," he said. Kelder said the dam dohave a fish ladder, but it does not support all types of fish. "It's not as effective as not having adam there," he said. Kelder said 93 percent of the watershed is upstream of that dam and removal would have a significant impact on the ecology of the river. "It would improve the connection for about 49 miles of river and stream habitat," he said. The South Middleton Dam, a stone and wdam owned by Bostik Inc., is the third dam on thmain stem of the Ipswich River without a fish passage structure in place. Kelder said the only purpose the dam is serving is a backup water supply for Bostik's fire suppression system. A feasibility study was done in 2010 using fundfrom the Gulf of Maine Council and National

ills

ntaminant p

y

es

ood e

s

stream and downstream flooding, and potential

Ipswich Dam

South Middleton Dam

Curtis Pond Dam - Failed

3Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Sediment testing was also completed. Kelder said Bosis now in the process of determining what the next step will be. There are several tributaries upstream of the South Middleton Dam that would be opened to fish migration if the dam were

tik

removed. "It would reconnect about 57 miles of river and stream habitat," Kelder said. The Curtis Pond Dam, which is in Middleton and owned by the town of Danvers, is slated for removal later this year. Kelder said the town is in the process of getting all of the proper permits approved to conduct the dam removal and stream restoration this summer. "This project will mark the first dam removal for ecological reasons in the Ipswich River watershed," he said. "It's the first of wwe hope will be many projects to start to tie together habitat."

hat

ract for Lusk Reservoir Dam

rs, New York

y

(Preserving a part of history at West Point) Army Corps awards $868,000 contmaintenance work at West Point NEW YORK – The U.S. Army Corps of EngineeDistrict, has awarded an approximately $868,000 contract to Cutting Edge Group of Lake George, N.Y., for maintenance work on the Lusk Reservoir Dam at the U.S. Military Academat West Point. The work is being done to ensure the continued long-term integrity of the more than 100-year-old dam, which holds back 78-million gallons of water when water is flowing over the spillway. Some of the work on the dam includes repointing, which is the replacement of mortar between stoto help maintain the structural integrity of the dam, valve work, and upgrading the dam’s more than 100-year-old emergency outlet pipe.

nes

“This work on the Lusk Reservoir Dam will help to ensure the continued integrity of this dam, and ensure the continued protection of the West Point community and nearby communities as well,” said New York District creturns an important safety and maintenance feature of the dam to active operation.” The 225-foot-wide and 35-feet-high dam was constructed in 1895 under the direction of Capt. James L.

Lusk, a West Point graduate from the class in 1878. The dam was originally constructed to create the Lusk Reservoir to provide drinking water for the academy and has since become an important piece of the historic campus. The maintenance work is slated to be

ommander Col. John R. Boulé. “It also

completed this fall. The Lusk Reservoir Dam repairs are a part of the ongoing Dam Safety Program that New York District and West Point collaborate on. The West Point Dam Safety Program incorporates the many dams throughout the installation and includes dam inspections, maintenance and emergencypreparedness planning and exercises.

(T irst dams worked on early inN

ow, they’re messing up my history.)

.net

reparing r an historic occasion next week when the first of two dams on the Penobscot River is

he Great Works and Veazie Dams were among the f a career.

LePage Objects to Long-Planned Removal of Penobscot River Dam 06/06/2012, Reported By: Susan Sharon, mpbn

enobscot Nation and federal officials are pConservation groups, members of the Pfodemolished: the 200-year-old Great Works Dam. One dignitary who won't be attending is Gov. Paul LePage. Instead the Maine Commissioner of Marine Resources will deliver

4Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

supportive remarks. The governor says the dam's removal runs counter to his energyobjectives.

he removal of the 1,000-f

oot-long Great Works

er ar

at's

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ast as

ve

ut Gov. LePage doesn't see it that way. Asked about Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's at a

eing

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as

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are

TDam in Bradley on Monday is a milestone in an unusual, 13-year, collaborative effort by a coalition of conservation groups, hydropowproducers and state and federal agencies to tedown two outdated, inefficient dams on the Penobscot and restore sea-run fish runs. Whalso unique about the project, known as the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, is that hydropower will not be decreased as a resuthe dams' removal. Laura Rose Day is the executive director of the Trust. "When the Penobscot project is over there will be at lemuch hydropower generation on the Penobscot system, and likely more," says the trust's executithat's because the arrangement allows hydropower producer Black Bear Hydro to increase energy development at other facilities along the river system--places where there is more adequate fish passage and that make more economic sense for power generation.

di Rose-Day. Rose-Day says rector, Laura

Bparticipation in Monday's celebration LePage joked with reporters and municipal leadersbusiness recognition event Wednesday morning. "Suppose I should call up the National Guard," he said. The governor went on to say that he thinks dam removal is inappropriate, given that hydropower is a renewable resource and electricity prices in Maine are so high. "I think it's irresponsible for our state or our country to be taking out hydro dams at this time. In fact, weought to be putting more in," he said. According to the International Energy Agency, only a fraction of the nation's 90,000 dams are used for hydropower anymore. And because of the expensive cost of construction and the amount of land and water involved, big dams aren't bbuilt except in rare circumstances. Even the National Hydropower Association, which advocates hydropower in the nation's energy mix, says the way to go is to boost capacity at existing dams. Jeff Leahey is the group's executive director. "We believe that there are opportunities throughoutthe water power or hydro power spectrum," he says. "Recently the Department of Energy came out with a new report that looked at existing infrastructure and found that there was over 12 Gigawatts nationally of new hydropower that could be installed on these existing dams. And do consider some of that the low-hanging fruit in the sector to be developed." Leahey says the economics probably pan out better for projects that involve existing infrastructure. But he says any new dam construction should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In the case of the Great Works Dam, Laura Rose-Day of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust says it winefficient, up for relicensing and would have needed tremendous work to be brought to modern standards. Next year the Veazie Dawhich is larger and closer to the ocean, is expected to be removed. Once both dams gone, Atlantic salmon and other sea-run fish gain improved access to 1,000 miles of ancestral river habitat. FEMA to introduce strategic plan for dam safety Lake Needwood dam example of success story by Alison Bryant, Staff Writer, gazette.net, June 06, 2012

Great Works Dam

Veazie Dam

5Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Using Lake Needwood in Derwood as an example, representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other groups on Thursday explained the importance of dam safety for those living in risk areas. FEMA soon will introduce a new strategic plan for the National Dam Safety Program, presenting a cross-section of activities, such as reducing the likelihood of dam failures and promoting public awareness of the benefits and risks related to dams. “Given our aging infrastructure, the stakes have never been higher than they are today,” said Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers, an organization devoted to keeping rivers healthy and clean. In2006, more than 2,200 people living south of the Lake Needwood dam were evacuated because of heavy rains and flooding. Days of downpour sparked concerns the dam would fail. Although the dam did not fail, Montgomery County spent $3 million to fix the damage. After the incident, FEMA, Montgomery Parks, the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security began working together to prevent catastrophic dam failures in the county and nationwide.

am safety is shared by all of us,” said Sandra Knight, deputy associate administrator for the “DFederal Insurance and Mitigation Administration. More than 85,000 dams exist in the U.S. From 1979, the year the National Dam Safety Program was established, through the end of 2008, dam failures resulted in more than 30 deaths nationwide. In fiscal 2009 and 2010, there were no fatalities in the U.S. from dam failures or incidents. The forthcoming strategic plan will set thenational agenda for dam safety and inform and support other dam safety programs at state and

federal levels. “It is a small program,” Knight said of the National Dam Safety Program. “But it’s so nationally important. It’s the only program that represents dams on a national level.”

HydroHydro:  

ant

oungstown, Ohio - The question of how active a role the government should take in the te

or

.

n – too many agencies regulate hydropower development. The over-regulation (No questio

accomplishes little for the environment, but it sure employs a lot of Government and consultemployees.) Government’s role is key topic at YSU forum By Burton Speakman, vindy.com, June 5, 2012 Ydevelopment of energy policy was a key point in Monday’s session of the Youngstown StaUniversity Sustainable Energy Forum. The role of government in terms of sustainable energy needs to be one that is developed for and by business, said Sam Randazzo, general counsel fIndustrial Energy Users of Ohio, a group of large industrial energy users. Currently in Ohio, the state mandates that a certain percentage of energy come from sources such as solar and wind, he said. The shift to using renewable energy is paid for by fees charged to electric users, he said“The system we have is not very dynamic or open to innovation,” Randazzo said. “We shouldn’t be picking winners in terms of energy.” The system that Ohio has is not sustainable in the long term, he said. “We’re trying to move forward by looking in the rearview mirror,” Randazzo said. But not all groups at the forum believe government has overstepped into regulation. Ned Ford, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club, said he disagrees that Ohio law

mandates the actions companies take. “I do agree that our system is reactive, not progressive,”Ford said. Increasing efficiency needs to be the answer, he said. Mark Gerken, president of American Municipal Power, said his company had issues with a new regulation from the Army Corps of Engineers during the construction of two hydroelectric plants on the Ohio River. The delay caused by a new regulation forced the company to wait six months to start construction and caused an increase in the interest rate for the construction loan. Gerken also said he questions the definitions of what constitutes clean and renewable energy. “If energy is clean, then it’s clean. Hydro power has been forgotten because it’s an older technology, but it’s clean energy,” he said.

6Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

The state government is looking at ways to generate energy policies that protect the environment and remove unnecessary regulations, said Craig Butler, assistant policy director for energy, agriculture and environment for the office of the governor. The forum continues today with several roundtable discussions on energy subjects. The U.S. Department of Energy is making progrerelating to energy efficiency and renewable energy, said Jason Walsh, senior adviser for energy efficiency and renewable energy with the U.S. Department of Energy. In each year the president has been in office, there has been an increase in domestic oil and gas production, he said. “We also set historic fuel- economy standards working with the auto industry,” Walsh said. There also has been continued advancement in renewable energy such as wind, solar and

ss

t have

-ilowatt hydroelectric generator using water piped

l t

geothermal, he said. “We [Department of Energy] have a long history of government fueling innovation in partnership with the private sector,” Walsh said. Private industry often does nothe finances to invest in energy research because it takes a long time to develop before there is any profit, he said. Walsh noted that one example of federal investment in energy is in the development of hydraulic fracturing. The department of energy began investing in that technology in the 1970s, particularly in areas such as the development of drill bits. (Looks like one of those sheds that Home Depot sells for $998.) Tiny hydro project generates red tape June 04 2012, by Mark Esper, silvertonstandard.com

s an 8This small shed at the Mayflower Mill housekfrom Arastra Gulch (background). But due to federaregulatory hurdles, the hydro-power facility is still noallowed to operate. Bev Rich, chairman of the San Juan County Historical Society, is pretty much fed up with FERC. And she’s not alone. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been making it very difficult for the historical society to get its tiny hydroelectric generating facility at the Mayflower Mill online. For instance, the agency is requiring detailed architectural drawings of the small shed that houses the generator itself. “And they need a new survey of where the shed actually sits on the property,” Rich said. Then there is the 30-day public comment period “from every federal agency you can think of and downstream Indian tribes,” Rich said. “It’s just ridiculous — especially since this is non-consuming.” The historical society, which also owns this newspaper, received a $105,000 grant for the project from History Colorado in 2010. The 8-kilowatt plant will be powered by water delivered by a pipeline from high in Arastra Gulch. The small plant should provide power for the mill for its summer tour season, and also allow the historical society to sell surplus power to San Miguel Power Association. Once completed, the small plant will offset the $600-a-month electricity bill the historical society now pays to keep the lights on at the Mayflower Mill, a National Historic Landmark that the society runs as a tourist attraction. “A century ago, mills all oveSan Juans were powered by hydro-electric power, a fortunate result of geography and abundant water supply,” Rich said. “We propose to re-use this historic technology to take our organization

r the

into the future.” But so far the project has only generated a lot of red tape, even though the generator has been installed and is ready to go. “We could have already been producing electric power since last fall if we hadn’t had to go through all of this,” Rich said. But Rich added that “it’s not FERC’s fault. They recognize it’s silly too. It’s just the way the law is.” Kurt Johnson of Ophir, president of the Colorado Small Hydro Association, testified before Congress earlier this month insupport of a bill to cut the paperwork involved in licensing small hydro-electric facilities and reduce the time it takes to get a license. The bill faces no opposition, but its fate in Congress is

still uncertain given the political climate in Washington. Johnson asked for a “Hydro 1040EZ” process that would make licensing easier. “It’s unbelievable,” Johnson said. “Imagine if, in order

7Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

to put a solar panel on your house, you had to get letters from federal and state environmental agencies.” On some small projects, he told the committee, the cost of complying with the laws is greater than the cost of the equipment itself. “This much regulation — completely crazy,” Johnsosaid. “Thank God you have some members of Congress who are doing something intelligent. Cutred tape, cut emissions, create jobs.” (This one will twist your mind. Of cours

n

e, it’s a concept, so we don’t know if it works!) A Pedestrian Bridge That Doubles As A Water Turbine Future Forward

An architecture firm investigates human-scale hydroelectricity.

tric ale to

ent Dam, for

Engineers usually build hydroelecpower stations at a massive scmaximize the amount of energy a plant can produce. The thinking goes that it’s more efficient to build massive plants that can accommodate future developmand growth. The Hoover example, supplies power to rapidly expanding cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. But a recent project by young Polish architects Dwawu examines the possibility of small-scale hydroelectric power plants, located in dense urban areas that aren’t expected to grow much more. Like Amsterdam, for example. The Turbine Bridge is Dwawu’s concept

for a hydroelectricity-powered pedestrian bridge over the Dutch city’s Amstel River. They’ve taken the turbine--normally hidden within the depths of a plant’s walls--and wrapped it around the footpath. The lightweight wings rotate as water moves the blades, creating a public spectacle that would likely unsettle some visitors. Within the turbine, two interlocking pedestrian and bike paths form the core of the bridge, with a playground above and engine rooms below. Unlike bigger stations, which typically create a massive reservoir by damming a river, the bridge functions on a “run of river” hydroelectric system. That means the power generated by the turbine’s blades must be used immediately. Which is fine, explain the duo, since the bridge only has the capacity to power its own operation, plus a small part of the surrounding neighborhood. “The rotating turbine is powered by the river’s current,” write Adam Wiercinski and Borys Wrzeszcz. “It generates electricity, making the link self-sufficient. It’s able to accumulate energy for the additional needs of the community.” [Images courtesy of Dwawu]. Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan - Kelsey is a designer, illustrator, and cyclist based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Previously, she was the editor of Architizer.

(Well. If the enviros are worried about importing Canadian Hydro, there is a solution – quit opposing hydro built in California!!!!!!) California May Credit Big Hydro Power to Green Energy Goal By James Nash - Apr 17, 2012, bloomberg.com California, the second-largest U.S. hydroelectric producer, would count large water projects toward its goal of having renewable resources supply a third of its power under a bill approved by an Assembly committee. The measure would remove a limitation that now counts only smaller hydropower projects, capable of producing 30 megawatts or less, to qualify toward California’s renewable portfolio standard. The biggest U.S. state by population, which consumed 8.5 percent of the nation’s energy in 2009, generated 13.2 percent of U.S. hydroelectric power, second only to Washington State, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. California

in 2002 and -owned utilities to generate 33 percent of their power from

adopted a formal target for renewable energy sources, such as solar and water, expanded it last year to require investorsuch sources by 2020. Environmental advocates and state Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, said allowing the large hydroelectric projects to count toward the renewable goal would uproot the purpose of the rule. Skinner said utilities could build giant hydroelectric facilities in neighboring states and Canada, then export the power back to California. “We would primarily be subsidizing hydroelectric out of state,” Skinner told the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce yesterday. The Democrat-dominated committee approved the bill 8-1. Sierra Club Opposes Backers include the California Chamber of Commerce and the Association of California Water Agencies, according to a bill analysis, while opponents include the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. Skinner said the bill would benefit Vancouver, Canada-based British Columbia Hydro & Power Authority, a utility owned by the province. California sued a subsidiaof BC Hydro, Powerex Corp., in 2005, accusing the company of inflating power costs to Californduring the state’s 2001 energy crisis. Greg Alexis, a BC Hydro spokesman, didn’t immediately respond to a telephone call requesting comment. Assemblyman David Valadao, the Hanford Republican who sponsored the legislation, received campaign contribut

ry ia

ions of $7,800 in 2010 ric Co. (PCG), a unit of PG&E Corp., California’s largest utility. That

from Pacific Gas & Electamount tied it for second place among his largest contributors, according to data compiled by the National Institute for Money in State Politics. Valadao didn’t immediately respond to a telephonecall seeking comment. San Francisco-based PG&E said 19.4 percent of its power in 2011 came from renewable sources. Lynsey Paulo, a spokeswoman, said the company had no formal position on Valadao’s bill. (As we always say – “when it rains hydro folks are the only people that smile”.) "Your Green Life": Hydro Power June 8, 2012, northlandsnewscenter.com Thomson, MN - In the last couple weeks the Northland has received copious amounts of rainfall. This lead to flooding and damage to roads, but Minnesota Power is using the water to provide a

and we're able to run full out now because we

ve it." When the rivers run high, Minnesota Power uses ad of storing the electricity in a big battery, what they do

clean and sustainable energy source. Nora Rosemore, the Hydro Operation Superintendent at MN Power said, "In a

easing normal spring flows would be decrn

8Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

ow, we would be starting to just run partof the day for the high demand periods of the dayhave this water, so we use it when we haas much of that energy as possible. Inste

is actually store rain water in a reservoir, like the Thomson Reservoir right behind me, that way they have clean electricity to use throughout the winter months. "Per hour at full out, Thomson produces 72 megawatts, an average house uses about 1000 Kilowatts." said Rosemore. That's a clean 72 megawatts of electricity that will supply enough power for 72,000 homes. Hydroelectric power not only leaves a small environmental impact, but it's the cheapest way to mass produce electricity because its fuel source is renewable, and reusable. Rosemore says, "Our fuel is the water and we're using the water just as its flowing through. We're not taking anything out of it, adding anything to it, we're not changing the temperature, we're just using it as it's flowing by. And on the St. Louis River system we use that same water four times." The four stations stretching from Night Falls, to Scanlon, through the Thomson and ending in Fond du Lac all are reusing the same water that already produced electricity up stream.

innesota Power is continually trying to improve their environmental footprint and will be meeting Msustainable goals early with another form of green power in the form of air. "By the end of this year we should be meeting our Minnesota Mandate of having 20% renewable by 2020, and we will be meeting that early with our wind projects in North Dakota." said Bonny Carlson, the Manager of MN Renewables.

n

9Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

EEnvviirroonnmmeenntt:   :   ing by politicians. This would have come the same without their involvement!)

Boundaries Approved For Lake of the Ozarks Hydroelectric Plant s Horizon, ozarksfirst.com, June 5, 2012

atory Commission announced Tuesday that they have approved lan to redraw the boundaries along Lake of the Ozarks for its Osage

(A lot of grandstandNewBy: Eli Yokley, Missouri New The Federal Energy RegulAmeren Missouri's pHydroelectric Plant. The decision keeps nearly 1,500 lakefront homeowners from losing their property. FERC's decision comes after significant push back from the entire Missouri congressional delegation, who last summer moved to roll back some of FERC's regulatory authority if they did not approve of Ameren's plan. In a statement Tuesday, Sen. Roy Blunt said

C line and

r common

the regulatory agency acted with "common sense" in approving Ameren's plan. "Limiting FERrequirements will provide more certainty for homeowners and businesses along the shoreallow Missourians to continue to benefit from this resource," Blunt said. The new plan would remove more than 28,000 around the lake from federal jurisdiction. "This is a victory fosense and the Constitutional right to ownership of property," writes Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Missouri) in a statement. "While FERC's decision is positive, some property rights issues at the Lake remain and I will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure the rights of Lake-area property owners are not being trampled on."

of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and ater resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted aterial herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for on-profit and educational purposes only.

iThis compilationwmn

10

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

6/22/2012

i

“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Cameron Hughes Lot 254 Meritage, Santa Ynez Valley 2008 “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson

Other StuffOther Stuff:  (Well, the enviros are getting what they with the reduction in the use of coal but not because of renewables so much – it’s all about the cheap natural gas which is slowing all alternatives, including hydro unfortunately.) Coal's decline in the US at a glance By The Associated Press, 06/12/2012, mercurynews.com Coal is being used to generate less electricity as the nation switches to cheaper and cleaner alternatives. Here's how the mix of fuels used to generate power in the U.S. has changed between 2008 and now. 2008 2012 (projected) Coal, 50% Coal, 38% Natural gas, 20% Natural gas, 29% Nuclear, 20% Nuclear 20% Hydroelectric, 6% Hydroelectric, 7% Wind and other renewables, 2% Wind and other renewables, 4% Petroleum, 1% Petroleum, 1% (Totals do not equal 100 percent due to rounding.)

1Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

DamsDams::  

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

Quote of Note: “Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.” - Unknown 

(Let’s hope the $62 Million works! Who does the Contractor think he’s fooling – it’s not an honor to tear the dams down, it’s money in the pocket that makes him happy?)

2Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

MMaaiinnee ddaamm rreemmoovvaall aaiimmss ttoo rreessccuuee ffiisshh ssppeecciieess BByy DDaavviidd AAbbeell || GGlloobbee SSttaaffff,, JJuunnee 1111,, 22001122,, bboossttoonngglloobbee..ccoomm Bradley, Maine - When the steel claw of an excavator slashes into the berm of the Great Works Dam on Monday morning, it will mark the start of a multimillion-dollar project to allow endangered and dwindling species to return to their historic spawning grounds along Maine’s longest river, the Penobscot. When the project is done - scheduled for 2015, after an additional dam is razed and another bypassed - it will open access to 1,000 miles of habitat for the native fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon and short-nosed sturgeon that journey from the Gulf of Maine to breed in the cold, fresh waters of the Penobscot. That is more than any dam removal and river restoration effort in the country, state and federal officials say. “People who had been fighting each other for many decades set that aside to focus on the common good,’’ said Laura Rose Day, executive director of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, which bought the dams for $24 million two years ago and is overseeing their demolition. “It’s among the nation’s most comprehensive projects, with tribal, national, state, local, and nonprofit groups coming together to totally reconfigure the power production on a river so we can have fish restoration and hydropower.’’ The project, estimated to cost $62 million, will allow six other dams that will remain on the Penobscot and its tributaries to produce melectricity. Together, they will generate an estimated 50 megawatts of power, enoabout 25,000 homes. “We absolutely sas a positive - from a business standpointand to satisfy our environmental responsibilities,’’ said Scott Hall, a spokesman for Black Hydro Partners of Milford, Me., which owns the remaining dams. Environmental advocates, fishermen, and a host of local, state, and federal officials have spent years seeking to restore the free flow of the Penobscot, the second-largest river in New England. 0ver the decades, as the dams churned out electricmany of the river’s fish have disappeared. Like other rivers in the region, such as the Kennebec, Androscoggin, Merrimack, and Connecticut, the Penobscot had massive fishruns until the early 1800s, when the nation began installing dams and log drives, mill waste, and other pollution began making manrivers into the equivalent of industrial dump

ore

ugh for ee this

Bear

ity,

y s.

There were as many as 100,000 salmon, 6 million American shad, and some 20 million river herring that migrated every year from the ocean to well north of Bradley to spawn. There is now

less than 1 percent that many fish of most of the 11 species that inhabit these waters, with less than 500 salmon counted this year, environmental advocates say. Most were bred in a hatchery. For years, the advocates prodded dam owners to build better fish ladders to allow the salmon to cross safely. But they found improved fish ladders didn’t do enough. The only answer, they decided, was to remove the three dams in the river’s lower 10 miles. “The salmon population is now on life support, and it’s a miracle that we’re still finding all species that historically inhabited the river,’’ said Andy Goode, vice president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation in Brunswick, noting that many salmon die while trying to pass through the dams. “We think this is the last best chance to save the Atlantic salmon from extinction. They’ve already been lost on many other rivers.’’ After dismantling the 1,000-foot-long Great Works Dam, which until recently continued to generate power for a large pulp mill on the banks of the Penobscot, contractors over the next three years will raze the Veazie Dam, 7 miles downstream, and decommission the Howland Dam on the Piscataquis River, a tributary 22 miles upriver. The river there will be diverted into a fish-friendly bypass channel. Those three dams have been particular barriers to fish migration. The final part of the project will be an elevator-like fish lift, which will be built by the Milford Dam, a few miles upstream from Great Works. “In addition to Atlantic salmon, this project will have an incredibly large benefit for other species that are economically important to the region,’’ said Eric Schwaab, acting assistant secretary for conservation and management of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has provided most of the money for the project. “This is a true ecosystem restoration . . . and will help bolster the entire Gulf of Maine.’’ Striped bass, blue-backed herring, alewife, sea lampreys, and other species will gain from having more habitats and spawning grounds. Marine life, such as cod and lobster, will benefit as they feed on other species and their eggs, and an increase in the larger fish will be a boon to eagles, osprey, and other birds that prey on them. The project comes a little more than a decade after the federal government ordered the demolition of the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec, the first such federal order for the benefit of fisheries. The controversial decision launched a wave of dam removals around the country. Over the past century, 1,111 dams have been removed in the United States, more than half of them since the Edwards was dismantled in 1999, said Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for American Rivers, a Washington-based conservation organization that protects and restores rivers. She said about 75,000 dams remain in the country, 14,200 of them in New England. “The Penobscot is one of the most significant river restoration projects our country has ever seen, because of the scope of benefits - access to 1,000 miles of fish habitats as well as the tribal, economic, and the recreational benefits,’’ Kober said. “We haven’t seen that much access before.’’ Among the beneficiaries are members of Penobscot Nation, which has a reservation on an island in the middle of the river near the Milford Dam. The historic fish runs long had cultural and nutritional importance for the tribe. “This watershed has provided the means for survival for tribal members for thousands of years,’’ said John Banks, the tribe’s natural resources director. “We feel this project is somewhat precedent-setting in that it brings folks together from diverse backgrounds and interests to restore the ecological values of this river, while maintaining generating capacity. So it’s really awin-win for everybody.’’

3

But some residents in the area are skeptical about the promised benefits of the project. They have questioned whether the fish will really return, given how low their numbers already are, and worry what will happen to their property lines as water levels change. “A lot of folks are just anxious about how this will all turn out,’’ said Melissa Doane, town manager of Bradley, where 1,500 people live beside the river. “But we’re excited that the project is finally getting started. A lot of us thought it would never happen.’’ In

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

recent days, massive hauling trucks have deposited hundreds of tons of granite into the river water to create a path for the excavators to do the work of tearing down the mix of concrete, wood, and boulders that make up the large dam. State and federal officials, including US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, will be in Bradley on Monday to witness the first breaches of the barrier. Contractors expect the river will run freely here by the end of the summer. “It’s an honor to take this down,’’ said Patrick Jordan, whose company is doing the work. “This starts a new era here.’’ (Sometimes in life, there has to be a little dam humor. This true story serves that purpose well, even though it has been around for quite a while!) Here Is My Dam Response How to answer an accusation from a bureaucrat with humor and style. Published on June 11, 2012 by Michael Michalko in Creative Thinkering, psychologytoday.com Here are two letters, both real, the first allegedly sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan; the second is Mr. DeVries' amusing response to the Environmental Quality Department. The letters provide a great example of the dangers of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions, and also how to reply to a false accusation made by some bureaucrat with humor and style. The DOEQ Letter Falsely Accusing Ryan DeVries Dear Mr. DeVries, It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity: Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31. Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that our staff may schedule a follow-up site inspection. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions. Sincerely, District Representative Land and Water Management Division ************************************************* Mr. Devries’ Response to the Bureaucrat’s Accusation

4Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

Dear Sirs,

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County. Your certified letter has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. A couple of beavers are in the process (State unauthorized) of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of nature’s building materials "debris". I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam

determination and/or their dam work ethic. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.

5Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

he

My first dam question to you is: (1) are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or (2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of

the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. I have several concerns. My first concern is: aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation, so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names. If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers, but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English. In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams). So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until The Spring? Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention a real environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting tdefecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step!(The bears are not careful where they dump!) Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being

unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office. Thank you Ryan Devries and the Dam Beavers Black River Falls dam reopens Jun 15, 2012, wxow.com, By Steffani Nolte, Multi-Media Journalist Black River Falls, WI (WXOW) — After five years of studies, demolition and reconstruction the Black River Falls Dam reopened on Friday. The new, $9.5 million, hydroelectric dam replaces a dam that served the community for 100 years. "Without it I think we would have a little void," Randy Eddy, Black River Falls City Council President said. "It's a lot of boating and fishing on the impoundment," Ron Danielson, Black River Falls Mayor said. For the community, the dam ribbon cutting ceremony symbolizes more than the completion of a project, it means the next generation of children will be able to make new memories. "We had a couple of friends that had cabins right here on the river. And we did some boating and skiing and really enjoyed the river," Eddy said. "Kids growing up here would always be fishing in the rocks below the dam all the time. I was like the rest of them I was there too," Danielson said. Aside from entertainment, the hydroelectric dam also produces 12-percent of the cities energy. "It's clean renewable energy we're not contributing to carbon emissions. We're not contributing to radioactive waste. It's a renewable source that is on demand," Warren Hayden, Mead and Hunt Project Engineer of Record said. The new dam required a lot of work, including 2,500 cubic yards of rock excavation and 14 million pounds of steel reinforced concrete. "It really goes back 5 years ago when we were enlisted to do a feasibility study," Hayden said. He said their biggest challenge was trying to do construction in the middle of a river. "We had to actually work around the river. So what the contractor did was they pushed the river to the east side, built the west half of the dam then flip-flopped," Hayden said. With all of the advances in technology over the past 100 years, the new dam is expected to outlive all of us, even the last dam, with a life expectancy of 150 years.

6Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

HydroHydro:   (When you’re trying to research stuff about hydro, you run into the most interesting things. A Sandrat! See photo below with the little creature in lower right corner. I’d like to get my hands on one of those Jayhawk sculptures since that’s my high school mascot too.) Home sought for sandrat sculpture Marsha Henry Goff, June 10, 2012, www2.ljworld.com A proposal is being considered to install a sandrat sculpture on the north bank of the Kansas River, just east of the Massachusetts Street Bridge. Plans call for the 3-foot-tall bronze sculpture, which was designed by Elden Tefft, to be displayed in a plaza near Bowersock Mills and Power Co.’s hydroelectric plant now under construction. Lawrence Park and Recreation made drawings of the proposed Sandrat sculpture and plaza near the new hydroelectric plant on the north bank of the Kaw River. The sculpture will stand about 3 feet tall and will sit on a curved limestone bench which spans 12 feet. Sarah Hill-Nelson, Bowersock owner-operator, said she is eager to help by providing materials and assistance with necessary approvals for the project. “I

think the river is a great resource,” she said, “and I am excited about having more amenities on the river that will draw people to it.” The sculpture recently was unveiled at the annual sandrat reunion. The term “sandrat” — once regarded as an insult directed at North Lawrence residents — has been enthusiastically adopted by them as a mascot. The sandrat mascot, according to Patty Burns Breithaupt, who has worked to find funding and a location in North Lawrence for the statue, “stands for honor, respect, pride and hard-working people who come together in times of need, as they did during the 1951 flood.” The reunion committee is raising money for completion of the statue, which will sit atop a curved limestone bench that spans 12 feet and rests on a large oval brick area. “It will be nice to sit on the ‘Sandrat Overlook’ and watch the river, rfished for the joy of fishing and others had to fish to make a living,” Breithaupt said. The idea for the sandrat sculpture grew out of a request for Tefft, a Kansas University professor emeritus of art, to create a sand rat mascot. He designed the mascot, and Heidi Meyer, a student he was mentoring, crafted small plaster sandrat figures as door prizes fothose attending the 2001 sandrat reunion. Tefft said the sandrat sculpture “took four cmodel sketches for the concept. But, whenenlarged to full scale, the statue took off wilife of its own and developed the wisdom of the Sphinx, the dignity of a Southern gentleman, the assuredness of Napoleon, along with some Hollywood whimsy, all behind penetrating eyes like those of an eagle.” Tefft is a well-known sculptor whose works include the statue of Moses in front of Smith Hall on the Kansas University campus, the iconic Jayhawk in front of Strong Hall and Chesty Lion at Lawrence High School.

emembering the old times when some of our family

r

lay- th a

yley Moller Hydropower Continues Steady Growth June 14, 2012, By Earth Policy Institute, sustainablog.org, By Ha World hydroelectric power generation has risen steadily by an average 3 percent annually over the past four decades. In 2011, at 3,500 billion kilowatt-hours, hydroelectricity accounted for roughly 16 percent of global electricity generation, almost all produced by the world’s 45,000-plus large dams. Today hydropower is generated in over 160 countries. Four countries dominate the hydropower landscape: China, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Together they p

hydroelectricity.

roduce

more than half of the world’s

Much of the world’s recent growth came from China, where hydropower generation more than tripled from 220 billion kilowatt-hours in 2000 to 720 billion in 2010.In 2011, despite a drop in generation due to drought,

7

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

hydropower accounted for 15 percent of China’s total electricity generation.

razil, the second-largest producer of hB ydropower worldwide, gets 86 percent of its electricity

any

urs

from water resources. It is home to an estimated 450 dams, including the Itaipu Dam, which generates more electricity than other hydropower facility in the world—over 92 billion kilowatt-hoper year. Approximately 62 percent of Canada’s electricity is generated from its 475 hydroelectric plants. The country’s enormous hydropower capacity allowelectricity export; Canada sells some 50 billion kilowatt-hours toUnited States every year—enough to power more than 4 million American homes.

s for

the

Because most large dams in the United States were built before 1980, the country’s hydropower capacity has remained relatively

stable in recent decades. The country’s highest capacity dam—the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington State—was completed in 1942. Today, more than 7 percent of all

U.S. electricity is supplied by hydropower. Similarly, hydropoin the European Union is relatively mature, with capacity increasing by less than one percent annually over the last 30 years. In 2011, hydropower supplied 9.5 peE.U. electricity generation.

wer

rcent of

mong the world’s largest greatest

t. Other

e

zil and a scattering of

-l and

Aproducers, Norway gets theshare of its electricity from hydropower: a full 95 percencountries that get the bulk of their electricity from river power include Paraguay (100 percent), Ethiopia (88 percent), and Venezuela (68 percent). A number of African and

electricity with hydropower, including Bhutan, thDemocratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nepal, and Zambia. While conventional hydropower will continue to grow as

ams are completed in China, Bra

small Asian countries also generate virtually all of their

dother countries, including Ethiopia, Malaysia, and Turkey, there exists enormous potential for nonconventional hydroelectricity generation from tida

8Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

9Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

l t require ese

ge ting

lion

of in

or additional data on the world’s energy resources, visit Earth Policy Institute’s Data Center

wave projects, as well as from smalin-stream projects that will nonew dams. Thus far, few of thhydrokinetic projects have been realized. France’s La Rance Tidal Barrage, with a 240-megawatt maximum capacity, was the first lartidal power plant. It began generapower in 1966, and is still operatingtoday. In South Korea, a 254-megawatt project was completed in August 2011. Now the world’s largest tidal operation, it has the capacity to provide electricity for half a milpeople on the country’s west coast. New Zealand also recently approved acoastal hydropower project. Wave power is also drawing the attention both engineers and investors. Firms

France, Scotland, and Sweden, among other countries, are working to capture this emerging market. Estimates from the World Energy Council indicate that worldwide, wave energy has thepotential to grow to a massive 10,000 Gigawatts, more than double the world’s electricity-generating capacity from all sources today. F and see the Supporting Data from World on the Edge by Lester R. Brown at www.earth-policy.org. Source: sustainablog (http://s.tt/1etUI)

EEnnvviirroonnmmeenntt::      rsal disagreement. Two scientists are slugging it out. This article does sound

process is solid

c Settlement Agreement calls on the secretary of the interior to make a

ersal

t

(We now have univecredible. Both sides are dug in and Congress isn’t ready to shell out the money for removal. It looks like everyone is running in place!) Dennis Lynch: Klamath scienceredding.com, June 11, 2012

he Klamath HydroelectriTdecision on whether to remove four Klamath River dams based on a foundation of scientific findings. That is why more than 100 experts on my team, including biologists, engineers, economists, hydrologists, and others, have been developing and sharing new scientific information for the past two years. In developing this information, my team used the univprinciples of the scientific method to produce 50 new reports: literature review, hypothesis (assumption) testing, data collection and analysis, and publication of peer-reviewed, publicly available reports which are available at KlamathRestoration.gov. Our team summarized these findings in an Overview Report that received a second layer of peer review from six independenexperts. We also obtained independent expert critiques of some existing reports, convened four independent science panels to provide points-of-view separate from those of federal scientists, and obtained valuable input during 25 public meetings since 2010. At these public meetings, people brought forward new information, topics for investigation, and their scientific assumptions. This was an open, transparent, and useful public process, and our reports are better because of it. During our scientific analyses, we investigated many assumptions, including those raised by

the public. Some assumptions proved to be supported by facts, while other assumptions proved to be inaccurate or incorrect. Dr. Paul Houser, in a series of speaking engagements last month in the Klamath Basin,

discussed many scientific assumptions that our analyses have shown to be inaccurate orincorrect. Although space won't allow a response to each of these inaccurate assumptions, responding to a handful of the more important ones is warranted.

• Dr. Houser suggested that the federal engineers didn't adequately study whether Iron al

t f

le of

re quite toxic" and are "high in r years."

high

safely

evastate fisheries for at least a year or r a

f the

troduced in the Klamath

he

om

rns, or any other

cern,

een a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey for 32 years, including

Gate Dam would fail during removal. The engineering analysis of Iron Gate Dam removwas rigorous, the detailed plan fully describes the process to safely remove this large earth-fill dam with a clay core, and this plan underwent multiple layers of peer review.

• Dr. Houser stated that "the devastation of the lower Klamath from all that sediment coming out is between one and three feet of the river channel, 150 feet wide, being covered with silt all the way down to the ocean." This is incorrect. Sediment-transpormodeling shows that dam removal would release 5.4 million to 8.6 million cubic yards oreservoir sediment. About 85 percent of this sediment is silt and clay that would be readily transported to the ocean by winter flows during reservoir drawdown. Very littthis sediment would remain in the river channel.

• Dr. Houser stated that the "reservoir sediments aphosphorus and probably quite a few other chemicals that have been banned foFindings from our study, and an independent study in 2006, are contrary to these conclusions. An analysis of over 500 chemicals in 77 sediment cores did not showconcentrations of toxic chemicals. Chemical concentrations are below "Critical Guidelines" for sediment disposal and thus these reservoir sediments could be released downstream if dams were removed.

• Dr. Houser stated that sediment release "will dtwo." Our analysis shows that a winter release of sediment in a single year, even unde"worst-case" condition (dry year), would result in less than 10 percent basin-wide mortality of Coho and Chinook salmon, and 20 to 30 percent basin-wide mortality osteelhead. Proposed mitigation measures would decrease this short-term mortality. Inlong term, dam removal would benefit all three fish populations.

• Dr. Houser stated "one of the things I do know is salmon were inin about 1895, intentionally, by people" suggesting that Coho or Chinook salmon are nonnative. Dr. Houser may have been referring to a plant of Coho salmon in 1895 in tTrinity River Basin that was overseen by the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries. This was an effort to replenish over-harvested native Klamath Coho runs with stocks frnearby streams; it was not an introduction of a nonnative species.

• Dr. Houser has never spoken with me regarding these scientific concescientific concerns regarding the accuracy of our studies. As senior scientist on this project, I am committed to bringing accurate, objective, fact-based scientific findings forward for the secretary's decision. If my team has erred in an analysis, missed a valuable information source, or failed to investigate an important assumption or conmy science team stands ready, as always, to evaluate new ideas and information sources, and to correct any errors. This decision is too important to leave any stoneunturned.

Dennis Lynch has bstudies in the Klamath Basin for 17 years. He is the lead federal scientist overseeing the science and engineering process for the secretary of the interior on Klamath River dam removal.

10Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

11Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

iThis compilation of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and water resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for non-profit and educational purposes only.

1

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

6/29/2012

i

“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Cameron Hughes Lot 300 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2009 “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson

DamsDams::    Fed agency upgrades safety rating of Dworshak Dam The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has upgraded the safety rating of a major Columbia Basin dam, but there haven't been any major repairs or changes to the structure itself. By Rebecca Boone, Associated Press, seattletimes.nwsource.com Boise, Idaho — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has upgraded the safety rating of a major Columbia Basin dam, but there haven't been any major repairs or changes to the structure itself. Instead, corps spokesman Bruce Henrickson said Tuesday, the federal agency decided to change the rating of Dworshak Dam from "Unsafe or Potentially Unsafe" to "Conditionally Unsafe" after studying the risks faced by the dam. "We're not saying the dam itself is necessarily safer," he said. "What we're saying is that we've revised the safety rating after taking a closer look and confirming that it's a robust dam and the likelihood of a seismic event is low." Officials additionally have determined that the cracks in the dam and leaks don't present an urgent risk of failure. According to the corps' newest analysis, the biggest risks come from earthquakes, which are rare in the region, and adverse weather events - including heavy snowpack, an abnormally wet spring and a rapid warming trend. Dworshak Dam, located near the north-central Idaho town of Orofino, is 717 feet tall - only 9 feet shorter than Hoover Dam. It's also the tallest straight-axis dam in the western hemisphere, which means that unlike the Hoover, it relies on a massive amount of concrete rather than a curved design to hold back the force of the water's flow. The impact of a dam failure would be huge,

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

Quote of Note: “Mediocrity has certain attractions; it’s much less demanding than success.” --Anonymous

2

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

likely inundating the communities of Ahsahka, Orofino and Lewiston as well as Clarkston, Wash. In fact, Henrickson said, such a failure would likely be felt through five downstream dams - all the way to McNary Dam on the Snake River near Umatilla, Ore. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building Dworshak in 1966, creating a 53-mile long reservoir that extends into the Bitterroot Mountains. The corps has spent millions of dollars over the past five decades attempting to patch cracks in the dam and in the bedrock beneath the structure. In 2007, an assessment of the dam showed that there was significant leaking coming from multiple sources, including previously repaired cracks, and that there was substantial pressure on the foundation. Additionally, the corps found that structures inside the dam were cracking and that some relief drains were plugged. The assessment also showed the current standards of care weren't being met for a dam of Dworshak's massive size. The report prompted the corps to give Dworshak a rating of "Urgent - Unsafe or Potentially Unsafe" through the agency's newly implemented Dam Safety Action Classification system. That rating prompted the corps to take several steps, including installing new instruments to measure movement inside the dam. The corps also studied the friction and strain placed on gates that open up to allow water through as needed, Henrickson said. The corps is still working on risk reduction measures such as updating the dam's safety emergency action plans and trying to find and repair leaks. "It's normal for any dam to have seepage to some degree or another," Henrickson said. "Dworshak continues to have some seepage." The dam's new safety rating is "High Priority - Conditionally Unsafe," a one-step improvement over the previous rating, Henrickson said. (It will be interesting to see the final assessment when these floods subside. And, it will be interesting to ass just how large the flooding turned out.) Minnesota Power dam system holding just fine Minnesota Power’s system of reservoirs and dams along the St. Louis River leading into the Twin Ports is holding well despite massive amounts of water pouring through, officials said Wednesday afternoon. By: John Myers, Duluth News Tribune, June 20, 2012, duluthnewstribune.com Minnesota Power’s system of reservoirs and dams along the St. Louis River leading into the Twin Ports is holding well despite massive amounts of water pouring through, officials said Wednesday afternoon. Utility officials said there are no problems with any of the fdams along the lower river — including the Fond du Lac, Thomson, Scanlon and Knife Falls dams between Cloquet and Duluth.

our

ailures: man for

“There are no problems, no fThe system is designed to handle this kind of flood and more," Amy Rutledge, spokeswothe Duluth-based utility, said Wednesday. Stream flow on the St. Louis River at the Fond du Lac dam rocketed tenfold from the usual 2,000 to 5,000 cubic feet per second to a gushing 47,000 cubic feet per second Wednesday morning, Rutledge said, as more gates were opened in the dams to relieve flooding behind them. Minnesota Power did have to shut down electrical generators at its Scanlon generating station because water had risen to flood the floor of the building, said Bonnie Carlson, hydropower operations manager for Minnesota Power. The utility’s dams at all five reservoir lakes north of Duluth also were holding well, although some areas below the lakes are flooding along the Cloquet River because so much water is flowing through, such as at Hunter Lake. The utility’s hydro operations went into emergency operations mode early Wednesday and began to open gates in the dams to allow more water to pass through and prevent floods upstream. That caused

Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood, St. Louis River

3

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

the St. Louis River to rise rapidly in the Fond du Lac neighborhood, as it has often in the past, and inundate riverfront areas there. Carlson said it could be Saturday before stream flow levels actually peak and begin to drop as water makes its way down toward Lake Superior. Meanwhile, power remained out at the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth and Barker’s Island area of Superior Wednesday afternoon, where in both cases electrical service boxes are under water. “We can’t even get our crews in to fix those until the water recedes," Rutledge said. Most of Minnesota Power’s power outages Wednesday were scattered, caused by lightning hitting power poles and, in some cases, washouts causing poles to fall. (Here’s a partial answer to the effect of the flooding) Minnesota Power diversion canal washed out near Thomson Dam A portion of embankment along a man-made diversion canal has washed out into the water above the Thomson Dam, Minnesota Power officials said Thursday. By: John Myers, Duluth News Tribune, June 21, 2012, duluthnewstribune.com A portion of embankment along a man-made diversion canal has washed out into the water above the Thomson Dam, Minnesota Power officials said Thursday. The problem poses no threat to the dam and doesn’t affect water flow in the raging river, said Amy Rutledge, spokeswoman for the Duluth-based utility. The move sent more water through the rat Jay Cooke State Park, whichis closed because of the high

iver

water. The canal diverts water from the main river into the electrical generating station tUtility officials said there are no problems with any of the four dams along the lower river — including the Fond du Lac, Thomson, Scanlon and Knife Falls dams between Cloquet and Duluth.

hat’s part of the system of dams along the lower St. Louis River.

“The integrity of Thomson Dam was not impacted by this event. No homes were affected and public safety was not at risk when the released water flowed back into the St. Louis River,” Rutledge said. Stream flow on the St. Louis River at the Fond du Lac dam rocketed tenfold fthe usual 2,000 to 5,000 cubic feet per second to a gushing 47,000 cubic feet per second Wednesday morning, Rutledge said, as more dam gates were opened to relieve flooding bthem. Minnesota Power did have to shut down electrical generators at its Scanlon generating station because water had risen to flood the floor of the building, said Bonnie Carlson, hydropower operations manager for Minnesota Power. The utility’s dams at all five resenorth of Duluth also were holding well, although some areas below the lakes are flooding along the Cloquet River because so much water is flowing through, such as at Hunter Lake. The utilityhydro operations went into emergency operations mode early Wednesday and began to open gates in the dams to allow more water to pass through and prevent floods upstream. That causthe St. Louis River to rise rapidly in the Fond du Lac neighborhood, as it has often in the past, and inundate riverfront areas there. Rutledge said company officials have not determined whenthe diversion canal will be repaired. The utility’s hydro system is shut down, in an ironic twist, because there is too much water moving down the river.

rom

ehind

rvoir lakes

’s

ed

rmoring a dam for overtopping protection is not new or pioneering!) (AThe redesign of a dam safety project makes sense sentinelsource.com, June 21, 2012

A report this week that Keene will take a pioneering approach to safety-related changes at Robin Hood Park dam confirms that big solutions need not be the only solutions to problems. In this case, the city will avoid a major reworking of the outlet from the dam, which holds back 6 acres of water; the aim of that earlier design was to assure that under no circumstances would water ever flow over the dam but instead would be channeled out through a large spillway. The new design provides for more modest outlet and culvert upgrades and, meanwhile, grants that in some extreme cases the dam could overflow. The new solution — the first of its kind in the state — includes a reinforcing of the back side of the dam with brick “armor” that’s overplanted with vegetation to prevent erosion should the dam overflow. The distinction may seem technical, but there are two significant differences. For one, the downsizing of the original big-outlet design eliminates the need for a large boxy structure in the bucolic park. And the new design obviates a preparatory draining of the pond — a step that could have had significant temporary impacts on fish life and on people who use and live near the park. The $600,000 cost of the new solution is roughly the same as that of the original plan, and the impact on at least one downstream property remains disruptive. But the end result is a design that helps retain the quiet character of the park. The new approach did not come out of nowhere. It resulted, in part, from citizens making noise about original big solutions to a flooding threat that, in their eyes, made no sense. Through storm after storm — including storms that flooded other parts of the city with hip-deep water — the Robin Hood dam seemed up to the job. But, so too had other dams in the state that over the years had given way, in at least one recent case leading to death. So, protective steps were ordered up by the state. That order initially led to big solutions, which led to citizen outcry, which led to reconsideration and a new design. This isn’t the first time locals have successfully pushed for alternatives to initial engineering plans — notably, the Winchester Street traffic roundabout replaced a huge interchange plan — and it will not be the last, so long as citizens stay alert and government officials give an ear to new ways of addressing problems. Cal Am can raise rates to remove San Clemente Dam The Associated Press, sacbee.com, Jun. 21, 2012 San Francisco -- California regulators have approved a plan by a Monterey-area water company to raise rates to cover the costs of tearing down the old San Clemente Dam. The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4-0 Thursday to let California American Water add a $2.55 monthly surcharge to most customers' water bills to finance the removal of the dam, which poses a seismic safety hazard. The 106-foot dam was built in 1921 and is used to store drinking water for Monterey County residents. But its reservoir today is mostly silted up. The project, managed in tandem with the California State Coastal Conservancy and the National Marine Fisheries Service, is expected to cost $83 million and take three years to complete. It will also serve to reroute the Carmel River and restore passage for the steelhead trout. Idaho's Dworshak Dam gets upgraded safety rating despite continuous structural leaks By The Associated Press, June 22, 2012, Rebecca Boone, blog.oregonlive.com Boise, Idaho _ The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has upgraded the safety rating of amajor Columbia Basin dam, but there habeen any major repairs or changes to the structure itself. Instead, corps spokesman Bruce Henrickson said June 20, the federal

ven't

agency decided to change the rating of Dworshak Dam from "Unsafe or Potentially Unsafe" to "Conditionally Unsafe" after studying the risks faced by the dam. "We're

4

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

5

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu

not saying the dam itself is necessarily safer," he said. "What we're saying is that we've revised the safety rating after taking a closer look and confirming that it's a robust dam and the likelihood of a seismic event is low." Officials additionally have determined that the cracks in the dam and leaks don't present an urgent risk of failure. According to the corps' newest analysis, the biggest risks come from earthquakes, which are rare in the region, and adverse weather events _ including heavy snowpack, an abnormally wet spring and a rapid warming trend. Dworshak Dam, located near the north-central Idaho town of Orofino, is 717 feet tall _ only 9 feet shorter than Hoover Dam. It's also the tallest straight-axis dam in the western hemisphere, which means that unlike the Hoover, it relies on a massive amount of concrete rather than a curved design to hold back the force of the water's flow. The impact of a dam failure would be huge, likely inundating the communities of Ahsahka, Orofino and Lewiston as well as Clarkston, Wash. In fact, Henrickson said, such a failure would likely be felt through five downstream dams -- all the way to McNary Dam on the Columbia River near Umatilla, Ore. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building Dworshak Dam in 1966, creating a 53-mile long reservoir that extends into the Bitterroot Mountains. The corps has spent millions of dollars over the past four decades attempting to patch cracks in the dam and in the bedrock beneath the structure. In 2007, an assessment of the dam showed that there was significant leaking coming from multiple sources, including previously repaired cracks, and that there was substantial pressure on the foundation. Additionally, the corps found that structures inside the dam were cracking and that some relief drains were plugged. The assessment also showed the current standards of care weren't being met for a dam of Dworshak's massive size. The report prompted the corps to give Dworshak a rating of "Urgent -- Unsafe or Potentially Unsafe" through the agency's newly implemented Dam Safety Action Classification system. That rating prompted the corps to take several steps, including installing new instruments to measure movement inside the dam. The corps also studied the friction and strain placed on gates that open up to allow water through as needed, Henrickson said. The corps is still working on risk reduction measures such as updating the dam's safety emergency action plans and trying to find and repair leaks. "It's normal for any dam to have seepage to some degree or another," Henrickson said. "Dworshak continues to have some seepage." The dam's new safety rating is "High Priority -- Conditionally Unsafe," a one-step improvement over the previous rating, Henrickson said.

HydroHydro:    (Finding all that natural gas supply in the Marcellus shale is a good thing, but it’s making renewables such as hydro difficult to build. That will prove to be short-sighted as has always been the case with hydro because we can’t seem to do the economics right!) Potential Competitors: N.E. Hydropower Project No Longer Viable By WBUR Newsroom, Jun 13, 2012, wbur.org Debate is heating up over a proposed 180-mile transmission line that would bring Canadian hydropower to New England. As the Concord Monitor reports:

A rival energy group to Northern Pass said [Tuesday] that its new study shows the hydropower project is no longer economically viable because natural gas is increasingly becoming a cheaper alternative.

The study “predicts a 2 to 3 percent drop in New England power prices, which would make it hard for Northern Pass investors to see a profit,” according to the Manchester Union Leader.

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“We simply don’t see the revenues substantially outweighing the costs there,” Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association (NEGPA), told WBUR’s Curt Nickisch for our Newscast unit. NEGPA, which commissioned the analysis, “represents companies that generate nearly 27,000 megawatts of electricity in New England, about 85 percent of the region’s power output,” the Union Leader reports. “When the competition is trying to keep you out of the marketplace, you must be doing something right,” Northern Pass spokesman Martin Murray told WBUR’s Curt in response to the study. Murray told Curt that bringing renewable hydropower to New England would lower utility bills. Northern Pass is a partnership between Hydro-Quebec, Northeast Utilities and its subsidiary, Public Service of New Hampshire. (Hydro ups and downs go as the water flows – not much new capacity!) U.S. hydroelectric vs. other renewable generation 1990-2011 energyforumonline.com, June 13th, 2012 Chart of the day

In-Pipe Hydropower Startup Eyes New York City Using the water flowing through our city water pipes isn’t a brand-new idea — in fact, it was just last year that the City of Portland, Ore., signed a deal with Lucid Energy to create in-pipe power projects designed to support power for EV charging stations, among other things (http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/10/in-pipe-hydropower-deal-for-portland/). It is, however, till a relatively nascent concept in terms of implementation, which is why it’s nice to see Rentricity, a relatively new start up, throwing its hat in the ring. While the Lucid In-Pipe Power System is, essentially, a way to install small hydropower directly into a city’s water mains, Rentricity’s system

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relies on exploiting the points in the municipal water supply where pipes feature a flow of 1-1.5 million gallons per day (MGD) and a 30 - 35 pounds per square inch (PSI) pressure differential. Such differentials can arise at a number of points within the city water systems, due to the fact that — in order to ensure that water doesn’t burst city pipes — water managers make sure to cut that pressure at a number of different points throughout the system. These pressures typically range from something like 150 PSI (when the water drops from reservoirs down to receiving stations), to less than a quarter of that. Rentricity works on the idea that, rather than wasting all that energy, we should put it to work in powering our cities. According to Fast Company (http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679949/pressure-drop-getting-power-from-the-water-in-our-pipes), Rentricity has already putting its pressure-harvesting turbine technology to work in a 62 kilowatt (KW) system at a water plant in Keene, New Hampshire, which is believed to be the first energy-neutral water treatment plant in the world powered by its own water supply. Rentricity has another couple such projects in the works in Pennsylvania, and a bigger 350 KW system set to launch in California in September of this year. The company is also working with New York’s Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the potentials for generating electricity at three of New York City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants. This seems like a timely idea, given the fact that the Big Apple has made headlines more than once over the last year for adding renewable energy projects to its portfolio — among them, a RFP for a sizable renewable energy installation slated for the capped Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, and a series of ten solar installations on City-owned buildings, bringing its total solar generating capacity to total solar generating capacity to 648 kilowatts. Up to 1.6 billion gallons of water flows through New York City’s pipes every day, so you can imagine the potential for (free! green!) energy just waiting to be tapped. (Doesn’t that guy know there’s no such thing as an uneconomical hydro project? The economics of 40 years is still too short with hydro projects lasting up to 100 years.) Hydroelectric project proposed at GDPUD meeting By Dawn Hodson, Staff writer | June 15, 2012 | mtdemocrat.com A proposal to install a new hydroelectric generator on Walton Lake was discussed at Tuesday's board meeting of the Georgetown Divide Public Utility District. A presentation on the project was given by Rick Lind who is president of EN2 Resources, Inc., an environmental consulting firm in Placerville. Lind and his firm were hired by the El Dorado County Water Agency to consult on the project. Lind estimates the project would generate 647,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and would have a minimal environmental or recreational impact on the lake. "We don't expect any change in water use, flow patterns or recreational uses of the lake. And the biological impact would be negligible," he said. The project is projected to have a 40-year economic life and would generate an expected $60,000 annually in income at today's electric rates. For the first 20 years, the income would go toward paying for the cost of the project which is estimated at between $1.3 and $1.58 million. The next 20 years of income would go to the district. Bonds to finance the project would come from the Department of Treasury. Resident Ed Grout, who was listening to the presentation, commented that the project was, in fact, revenue neutral. "The first 20 years will be spent paying for the project and the second 20 years money will have to be put aside to pay for replacing it. It's a feel-good project," he said. Lind countered by saying, "I estimate you'll come out ahead over time. The replacement costs would be minimal for a new generator and the infrastructure would already be paid for." He also pointed out the projected income of $60,000 was based on today's electricity prices and they would be considerably higher 20 years from now. The consultant said there were two ways the district could use the energy from the proposed project. One would be to sign a contract with PG&E and sell the energy to them at nine cents a kilowatt-hour. The second would be to get credit on energy bills with PG&E. Lind said PG&E offers these kinds of options as an incentive for local water districts to take on small hydroelectric projects like the one at Walton Lake. The powerhouse itself would be located at the terminus of the Sandtrap Siphon pipeline and would be set back from Walton Lake shoreline so it would not interfere with people being

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able to access the entire shoreline of the lake. Lind said that moving ahead with the project requires approval from both federal and state agencies. As part of the process, the board was asked to accept the findings that the project would have no environmental impact and to vote to file a notice of exemption from CEQA. The board voted to do so with the exception of board member Kathy Otermat. Lind said the next step is to complete the public review in order to satisfy the federal requirements for the project. He said the project, if approved, could be online by 2014. (It’s amazing! In addition to all the other permits etc., you have to get the permits for temporary stuff too.) Black Bear Hydro seeking Army Corps approval of hydroelectric dam upgrades By Nick McCrea, BDN Staff, June 19, 2012, bangordailynews.com Orono, Maine — Black Bear Hydro Partners LLC has applied for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct dam upgrades in the Stillwater River, according to the Army Corps. Black Bear Hydro is seeking permission to place temporary and permanent fill materials below the high-water line of the Stillwater River at the Orono and Stillwater hydroelectric dam sites so it can begin work. The company plans to build and operate a second powerhouse with three turbine generator units at the Stillwater dam, increasing capacity by 2.23 megawatts, as well as a new downstream fish passage and upstream eel passage, according to the Army Corps. At the Orono dam, Black Bear Hydro plans to install similar upgrades, with an increased capacity of 3.74 megawatts. The upgrades are intended to make up for the energy capacity that will be lost with the demolition of the Great Works and Veazie dams on the Penobscot River, according to the company. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection approved the upgrades of the two dams in September 2011. Work at the two dams is part of a broader effort by the Penobscot River Restoration Trust to restore populations of 11 native species of sea-run fish by removing obstacles and opening the river to them. The trust purchased the Veazie and Great Works dams and another in Howland with plans to put them out of service and allow fish to travel farther up the Penobscot River into the central portions of the state. Crews began to demolish the Great Works dam on June 11, and the Veazie dam is scheduled to come down by 2014. The Howland dam will be decommissioned and bypassed by a fish lift. A dam in Milford also is scheduled to get a fish lift. (Good luck on that one!) Quincy renews hydro application at Clarksville, Mo.; plans no new spending whig.com, Jun 19, 2012, By Doug Wilson, Herald-Whig Senior Writer Quincy has filed an amended application to pursue a hydroelectric generation facility near Clarksville, Mo., but members of the Quincy City Council say it is not something they expect will obligate the city for any new spending. Quincy has held preliminary permits to study hydroelectric development at Lock and Dam 24 at Clarksville, Mo., and Lock and Dam 25 at Winfield, Mo. Those two permits were not affected last year when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the city's preliminary permit for development of a hydro plant at Lock and Dam 21 in Quincy. "This preserves our attempt to sell what we have already done, and there is going to be no cost involved," said Alderman Paul Havermale, R-3. Chuck Bevelheimer, director of the Quincy Department of Planning and Development, signed off on the application, which was filed Monday. If the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission (FERC) grants permission, the city gets up to a three year extension on a feasibility study that was launched several years ago. The permit gives the city exclusive rights to develop a hydro-electric facility at Lock and Dam 24. Officials hope that private entities interested in hydro projects may be willing to pay the city to turn over engineering work the city has already done on the project. The application calls for 60 turbine generator units, each with a 500 kilowatt capacity. The generator array would have an estimated power production of 154 megawatt

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hours, based on an 11-year record of tailwater heights at Lock and Dam 24. According to records between 2001 and 2011, the dam has a head height of 9.7 feet or more 50 percent of the time. The head height determines the number of feet water could fall through turbines to generate an electric current. Lock and Dam 24 is built across the Mississippi just north of Clarksville, in Pike County, Mo. The Illinois side of the dam is in northwestern Calhoun County. Havermale said the City Council, acting as the city's hydroelectric authority, voted in April to renew the application and maintain its exclusive rights to pursue the project. The application filed this week "fixes some deficiencies in the earlier application," Havermale said. Since 2006, the city spent $5 million toward developing hydropower on the Mississippi River, with much of the initial work being done at Lock and Dam 21 in Quincy. FERC dismissed the licensing application and preliminary permit for Lock and Dam 21 in February 2011, ruling that the city had inappropriately worked in tandem with a private energy company on the project. The city appealed the decision, noting that FERC personnel had approved the public-private effort, but the commission upheld its decision in May 2011. Washington-based law firm VanNess Feldman advised the city not to seek a further appeal of FERC's ruling because it would likely take two years and a considerable amount more than the $45,000 the firm was allotted to handle the initial appeal. The preliminary permit for Lock and Dam 21 is now held by Hydro Green Energy of Westmont. The city retained preliminary permits at Lock and Dam 24 in Clarksville, Mo., and Lock and Dam 25 in Winfield, Mo. A $6.6 million bond was approved in 2009 for the licensing work required to earn the permits to develop the facilities. Last August, the City Council approved paying off the $7.3 million in outstanding bonds and interest over the next five years. City officials don't expect an increase in property taxes will be necessary to finish paying off the bond by Dec. 1, 2015. (Good question!) But what about water power? By Deborah D. Thornton, 22 June 2012, thegazette.com As the public policy battles over energy continue, is anyone investing in water energy? A recent report by the U.S. Department of Energy is increasing hydroelectric power’s visibility, especially in Iowa. The prosperity of Iowa is closely linked to water, especially the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Maybe it is time to capture this natural resource to make Iowans more prosperous. Hydroelectric power is the production of power by using the gravitational force of falling water. It is one of the oldest and most widely used forms of clean, renewable energy in the world. In 2010, hydroelectric power provided over 3,400 terawatt-hours of power worldwide — about 16 percent of all the electricity generated. However, in the United States, only about 7 percent of our electricity is generated by hydropower. The first modern water-powered electric plants in the United States were built in the 1880s in response to the high price of coal. We have more than 80,000 dams in the United States, but only 2,500 produce electricity. The energy potential of the unused dams is simply wasted. The DOE report, “An Assessment of Energy Potential at Non-Powered Dams (NPDs) in the United States,” supports an expansion of hydropower energy in Iowa. The DOE’s estimate of total potential U.S. hydropower capacity is 12 Gigawatts. It takes one megawatt to power 400 homes for a year. A Gigawatts equals 1,000 megawatts. Therefore, a Gigawatt would provide electricity for about 400,000 homes per year, and 12 Gigawatts would power about 4.8 million homes. Though actual production would be less, increases in hydropower could be a significant new, renewable addition to the energy industry. Importantly, because the dams are already in place, much of the environmental impact and analysis, development cost and time investment has already been incurred. Adding power generation can potentially be done with lower cost, less risk, and in less time than building many other power sources. Twelve of the top 100 U.S. dam sites are in Iowa, primarily Mississippi River Dams 9 to 18. The initial estimate is that these dams can produce electricity for about 236,000 homes. Hydropower plants on the two dams on the Des Moines River — Red Rock and Saylorville — have a potential capacity of another 90 megawatts, enough

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energy to power 36,000 homes. It’s time for us to put the power of the river to work again. Deborah D. Thornton is a research analyst with the Public Interest Institute, Mount Pleasant.     Snohomish PUD honored for Youngs Creek Hydro Project Small hydropower projects, such as Youngs Creek, give the PUD greater flexibility with its power supply as they’re locally generated, reliable resources that provide energy at times of the year when it’s needed the most. Jun 22, 2012, mukilteobeacon.villagesoup.com Snohomish County Public Utility District’s Youngs Creek hydropower project has received a “2012 Honor Award” from the Seattle Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The PUD’s Youngs Creek facility started operation last October south of Sultan. It’s the first hydropower project in Washington state in nearly 20 years. With a generating capacity of 7.5 megawatts, it produces enough energy at full capacity for nearly 6,000 homes. The project sits above a natural barrier, a waterfall, so as not to impact migrating fish such as salmon. Youngs Creek is a run-of-the-river project, including a three-mile underground pipeline dropping 920 feet in elevation from the intake to the powerhouse. Throughout its development, the PUD consulted with a broad range of stakeholders, including local, state and federal agencies, the Tulalip Tribes and community groups. The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, for example, was a key partner in helping to identify adequate levels of river flow and fish protection measures. “This backyard resource is a well-proven, cost-effective and carbon-free resource that complements other green energy including wind and solar,” said PUD Assistant General Manager of Water, Generation & Corporate Services Kim Moore. Small hydropower projects, such as Youngs Creek, give the PUD greater flexibility with its power supply as they’re locally generated, reliable resources that provide energy at times of the year when it’s needed the most. It’s competitively priced compared with other green sources. The bulk of the PUD’s energy comes from clean, renewable hydropower, generated at its projects in Western Washington and from Columbia Basin hydropower purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration. This resource has provided a reliable source of energy to the people of the Pacific Northwest for decades. Collinsville Dam Legislation Passes House Companion legislation introduced in senate. June 26, 2012, Submitted Press Release, canton-ct.patch.com Washington— Today the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation authored by U.S. Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-05) to help generate clean power on the Farmington River. Murphy’s legislation, the Collinsville Renewable Energy Act, will permit the towns of Canton, Avon, and Burlington to operate two currently-inactive hydropower dams and generate locally-produced power. The dams are expected to produce nearly two megawatts of power, enough to power more than 1,500 homes. Murphy and Canton Republican First Selectman Dick Barlow first worked together to pass similar legislation through the House in June 2010. However, the Senate failed to take up the bill later that year, and Murphy and Barlow are now working to renew their efforts. “These two dams are already a beloved and long-standing symbol of the Farmington’s Valley’s rich history. With the House’s vote today, we can help make them a symbol of the Valley’s future as well — retrofitting them to provide clean energy to power thousands of Connecticut homes and businesses.” said Murphy.

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The two Collinsville dams (upper and lower) were built in the 18th and 19th centuries to power the Collins Company, which produced axes and closed in the 1960s. While the dams are now owned by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), licenses to operate the dams must be obtained from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Federal legislation will provide the town with the right to operate the dams by allowing for the reinstatement of existing (but inactive) FERC licenses. The legislation would also require the FERC to solicit additional public comment and new environmental data before taking any action, ensuring that the river’s health and ecology is fully protected. “The whole Town of Canton and I are appreciative of Chris’ efforts in getting these dams operational again. Our town, as well as Avon and Burlington, are very excited to be on our way on this important project,” said Canton First Selectman Dick Barlow. The bill must next be passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by President Obama before the town can take over the licenses. Companion legislation has been introduced by Senators Blumenthal and Lieberman.

WaterWater:    (Interesting hydro article re future water supply concerns in CA) Hydropower With a Shrinking Snowpack And why that could show up in your electric bill We’ve mapped all of California’s hydropower dams as part of our series on “Water and Power.” June 17, 2012 | blogs.kqed.org | By Craig Miller While much is uncertain about California’s warming climate, there is little doubt that it’s already changing the fundamentals of how most of us get our water. In fact, the Bureau of Reclamation has estimated that the Sierra snowpack could be reduced by half as soon as a decade from now. And that has some far-reaching implications that could even show up on your electric bill.“When you hear people talk about a depleted snowpack, it’s because of warmer temperatures and the snow just cannot stay in the hills,” says Robert Sa hydrologist and consultant to

hibatani,

numerous government agencies. He says the “hydrograph” for California — the “usual” pattern of precipitation and runoff — is already changing. “There’s no question about it,” he told me in a recent interview. “That’s not an if. It’s not even a when, because I can tell you the when. It’s happening now.” Shibatani says it’s not that we’ll get less precipitation, necessarily, but warming temperatures will mean more of it falling as rain at higher elevations. And the relatively steady runoff we’ve come to count on to fill the reservoirs and spin the turbines throughout the summer and fall will be compressed into the late winter and early spring. “What it’s gonna mean is that we’re gonna spill more often,” says Einar Maisch, strategic planning director for the Placer County Water Agency. “And that means we’re gonna lose generation.” Maisch says his agency is already enlarging spillways to accommodate bigger springtime rushes of water — and he’s prepared to see power generation taper off by 5-to 6 percent at his facilities, which generates more than 200 megawatts of power, purchased by

Craig Miller - PCWA's Ralston Powerhouse on the Rubicon River in Placer County. California typically gets about 15% of its electricity from hydro facilities inside the state.

PG&E. “Water that goes over the top [during those high-pulse periods] does not go through a turbine,” he says. At other times, there may not be enough runoff to spin the turbines reliably. We had a sneak preview of that during those three dry years in a row that we had recently. Overall, during that time hydro generation was roughly cut in half, says water analyst Juliet Christian-Smith at Oakland’s Pacific Institute. “That has a price tag and an environmental impact as well.”

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ay

She ran the numbers and found that as utilities were forced to switch some of the load to natural gas-fired plants to make up the difference, “The cost to electricity consumers was about $1.7 billion dollars.” That’s billion, with a “B.” And here are some more billions from the same time frame: 13 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide emissions because, well, burning natural gas emits CO2 and hydropower does not. Christian-Smith says that, “Given the impact of this drought on our energy production possibilities and the costs that we had to pfor energy, it’s important to think about whata longer and more severe drought might do.” And there’s another rub, says PCWA’s Maisch. “Hydro is unique.” Not only is it the cheapest form of power imaginable, but it’s the most “dispatchable,” as they say, when utilities need to make quick adjustments to meet fluctuations in electrical demand. On a tour of one of his agency’s

bicon River

Ralston t

e

powerhouses, near where the Rumeets the Middle Fork of the American, “Throttling the needle valves on the generator over there can change the amounof flow by 50% within 10 minutes. It gives us a tremendous ability to ramp in counter-flow to thchanges in the grid.” That’s not a trivial matter as utilities try to balance a power grid with an increasing percentage of on-again, off-again renewables, like wind and solar. PG&E’s David Moller, who heads the National Hydropower Association, said in a recent company publication that, “The operating flexibility of hydropower is essential to grid reliability and integrating intermittent renewables.” He’s calling for an expansion of hydro, pointing out that of the 80,000 dams across the country, just three percent currently have hydro installed. But any expansion in California will be a tricky proposition given the environmental sensitivities of the state’s mountain regions. Most projects have recently gone through — or are going through — tortuous renewals of their federal licenses, which usually result in a net reduction of power generated to accommodate environmental concerns. And in California, utilities can’t count hydropower toward their renewable energy targets. iThis compilation of articles and other information is provided at no cost for those interested in hydropower, dams, and water resources issues and development, and should not be used for any commercial or other purpose. Any copyrighted

Craig Miller - PG&E's Belden Powerhouse on the upper Feather River. This stretch of the Feather has so many hydro plants on it that it's become known as the "Stairway of Power."

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material herein is distributed without profit or payment from those who have an interest in receiving this information for non-profit and educational purposes only.