5/2/2014

Some Dam – Hydro News TM And Other Stuff i

Quote of Note: “Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.” _ Unknown

Some Dam - Hydro News Newsletter Archive for Back Issues and Search http://npdp.stanford.edu/ Click on Link (Some Dam - Hydro News) Bottom Right - Under Perspectives

“Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: 2011 Beckmen Vineyards US Red Blend "Cuvee Le Bec" “ No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap. ” - - Thomas Jefferson

Dams: (Anchors away me boy!) First step of Wanapum Dam repair work begins By Kate Prengaman / Yakima Herald-Republic, April 21, 2014, yakimaherald.com

Beverly, WA — Drilling more than a dozen holes in the Wanapum Dam’s already damaged concrete might not seem like a repair strategy. But it’s actually the first step in a tentative plan to fix a 65-foot-long fracture in one of the giant concrete blocks that supports the dam’s spillway. Such cracks are rare. However, engineers already have a potential solution that’s been used to stabilize scores of dams around the world. But before repairs can begin, they need to figure out how deep the crack stretches into the concrete and how it happened in the first place. Hence, the drilling now underway.

1 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu In late February, divers discovered the crack, which stretches the entire length of the concrete block and was 2 inches wide in places. The entire spillway appeared to be bulging downriver slightly. The Grant County Public Utility District, which owns the dam, dropped the level of the river behind the dam 26 feet to reduce pressure on the spillway. It worked; the spillway has been stable since early March. But studying the cause and planning for repairs have moved much more slowly. Crews can only access the area by crane or boat, so windy weather delayed work, said PUD spokesman Chuck Allen. They’ve been drilling 4-inch-wide holes into the concrete block in a grid pattern to find out how deep the crack reaches into the concrete. When they first hit the crack, water gushed out of it like a geyser. To keep the drilling crew dry every time they reach the crack, divers have since installed a large sheet of waterproof fabric over the underwater crack. “It’s like a giant Band-Aid on the face of the fracture,” Allen said. “It’s like a pocket of water now, but it won’t be under pressure.”

So far, crews have drilled six of about 20 holes planned. Allen said they expect to have the exploration and analysis done by early June. The PUD has determined water pressure caused the crack. It’s unknown if the problem stems from the design, a construction error or material failure. Engineers have ruled out earthquakes, instability in the bedrock beneath the dam and explosions at the Army’s Yakima Training Center, adjacent to the dam’s west side. “The primary goal of a dam is to withstand water pressure,” Allen said. “We are analyzing the whole spillway, not just the fractured area.” The entire spillway is 820 feet long, with 12 spill gates, each supported by an individual, 65-foot-wide concrete block, identical to the one with the crack. The tentative repair plan, Allen said, is a technique known as the anchored tendon approach. Steel cables, called tendons, will be drilled through the fractured area and anchored to the bedrock below. Tightening down on the cables from the top will pull the crack closed. The drill holes around the rods are then sealed with a specialized grout. “The steel cables are stretched just like a rubber band,” explained John Wolfhope, an engineer and vice president of the U.S. Society on Dams who has written reviews of the technique. “We’re adding more resistance to hold the concrete in place with these very engineered rubber bands.” The technique has been used to stabilize concrete dams for decades, Wolfhope said. It’s commonly used to add support to dams and to repair damaged structures. In fact, it was once used at Wanapum Dam in 1962, the year before the dam began generating power. It was not immediately clear late last week what prompted that work. It was one of the first places where the technique was used in the country, said Wolfhope, who was not involved in earlier work or the current project. More recently, the technique was used to improve stability at the Olmos Dam, outside San Antonio, Texas, in 2010. Much smaller than Wanapum, that dam was built in 1928 for flood control.

The $4 million improvement project installed 68 steel tendons. And in 2000, the anchored cables were used to help repair a dam in Corpus Christi, Texas, that had been pushed 4 inches downstream by water pressure, Wolfhope said. Allen said this technique is currently considered an intermediate repair. “This could be a temporary repair and it could also possibly be the repair for the long term,” Allen said. “We’ll install it, bring reservoir up to intermediate level, and see if it’s stable enough to be the long-term solution.” Studies have shown the tendons can provide long- term structural support if they are properly sealed to prevent corrosion of the steel by exposure to water. The final design plans have to be reviewed by an independent board of consultants and the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee before the PUD will be authorized to start the work. Allen said they don’t have an estimate of how much the repair work will cost yet, they are just paying the bills as work gets done. So far, the PUD has paid out about $700,000 to contractors. “It seems like a low figure now, but not all the invoices have come in,” Allen said. The PUD is generating a cost estimate to present to its board of commissioners at its next meeting, he added.

(After a 100 years, what do you expect?) Minidoka Dam Spillway Open For Business By Joey Martin, Apr 18, 2014, kmvt.com

2 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Minidoka County, Idaho ( KMVT-TV / KSVT-TV ) Friday afternoon, the water began to flow from the newly constructed Minidoka dam spillway, located at Lake Walcott State Park. The original spillway was completed in 1913, and with well over 100 years of service, it was time to shut the book on the old facility and open a new one for the future. The original Minidoka dam began construction way back in 1909; the spillway section was completed in 1913. Consisting of only piers and stop log, which were basically wooden boards that were hand lifted into place to hold back the water. So it was clear that a new spillway was a much needed necessity.

"It's a very old dam, and we’re modernizing it. As you can see here... there's the new spillway section. There's all of these gates that we can control remotely to control the water in the reservoir here," explains Roland Springer, Bureau of Reclamation. At a price tag of over 30 million dollars, this new spillway is a big improvement to the old facility. And also for those who control the water and water users downstream... "There is no comparison... it's a huge improvement for everybody. It makes the dam operator easier; it makes our job easier. We’ll have better gates to work with, more measurable flow... it just makes our operations easier," points out Dan Davidson, GM, Minidoka Irrigation District. Once all of the 12 gates are open, the amount of water flowing though totals 10s of thousands of cubic feet per second. And with that much water flowing all at once, the design of this new spillway is really what sets it apart from others A big improvement for the Mini- Cassia region, bringing the ag community the resources needed to excel in the coming years. Now the project isn't completely done yet. There are still minor finishing touches to be done. But the water is flowing and should be completely done within the year.

(Odd title for dam repairs article, but it’s rubber so it fits!) BETTER BLADDERS By Tom Kuglin Independent Record, helenair.com, 4/20/14

Ongoing repairs improve Toston Dam’s function, longevity Hydroelectric power | Leak in 2012 drained reservoir, cut off irrigation for five days Toston Dam Repair

After a leak sprang in 2012 leaving farmers waterless for five days, the DNRC decided to replace Toston Dam's 23-year- old rubber bladders. When a leak sprang in one of Toston Dam’s 23-year-old rubber bladders in 2012, it took fewer than three hours for the entire 327 acre reservoir to drain and for farmers to lose irrigation water for five days. Current construction on the dam aims to stop a similar event from happening again, and so far it is coming in under budget. Toston Dam, also called Broadwater Dam, has the distinction of being the only state- owned hydroelectric dam. The 6 to 10 megawatts of power produced is small compared to other dams — Canyon Ferry Dam produces over 277,000 megawatts — but it does earn the state 3 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu between $4 million and $5 million in revenue annually. Revenue varies year to year based on river flow. In years where the Missouri flows consistently between 6,000 and 6,500 cubic feet per second, the plant can operate at its peak. When flows bump above or fall below that level, the power generation dips. DNRC uses the revenue from Toston Dam for maintenance of Montana’s 20 other state-owned dams that do not produce electricity. Toston Dam is also vital surrounding agriculture land. The dam provides enough water to irrigate 194 square miles of ground. When the dam was built in 1940, farmers controlled the water level by inserting boards called needle beams to raise the water level. In 1989, the state completed construction of the powerhouse and turned to a new technology to control water levels. They replaced the needle beams with seven rubber bladders that can be inflated and deflated to control water flow over the spillway. “It was a risky idea back in ’89, but it ended up being fabulous,” said Mike Sims, DNRC engineer. “They perform extremely well in our cold climate.” The early bladders did have an engineering flaw, however. A seam that runs the length of bladder can fail after 20 years of use. On the morning of Sept. 22, 2012, the seam failed in Bay 6, and a leak developed. As a result of the leak, all the bladders except one began to deflate, with two fully deflating. DNRC shut the powerhouse down and scrambled to stop the leak. The water flowing over the spillway climbed from 1,500 cfs, hitting a peak of 9,000 cfs, but staying well below flood stage of 25,000 cfs. No property damage or injuries resulted.

To fix the leak, DNRC turned to old technology, inserting needle beams and wooden flashboards, but the fix proved labor intensive, and five days passed before irrigation water could flow again. “Fortunately the leak occurred in September, so most of the irrigating was done for the year,” said plant manager Brian Carroll. “We took the failure as an opportunity to make improvements on the dam.” DNRC commissioned the building of two steel bulkheads that can quickly go into place to stop a leak. The state estimates the time irrigation water would be lost due to a leak would be three days at most. “Farmers can make it three days without water, but they can’t go a week,” Carroll said. After inspecting the remaining bladders, engineers determined they were also approaching the end of their lives. The agency decided to replace all the bladders. “There was no question that we’d replace them with what we had before,” Sims said. “Ice doesn’t stick to them like steel gates that go up and down. The benefits far exceed the negatives.” The rubber bladders work well in smaller dams where water level is meant to be kept stable, Sims added. The bladders would not work in a larger dam like Canyon Ferry. Only four companies in the world manufacture the 40-by 80-foot bladders, and it took more than a year, and a cost of around $1.1 million, for the custom built slabs of rubber to arrive on site. The state chose a bid from Bozeman-based NW Construction Inc. as the construction contractor for the project at a cost of $621,000. MWH Americas of Washington won the engineering contract at a cost of $271,000. The total cost for the construction comes in a little less $2 million — a third less than the $3 million allocated.

In addition to replacing the bladders, the state plans to add additional piping and valves that will enable dam operators to isolate bladders if they fail. The reason the 2012 leak created such a problem is that bladders were inflated in pairs. When Bay 6 deflated, DNRC could not stop Bay 5 from also fully deflating and doubling the amount of water spilling out. “Within a couple hours, it just looked like the Missouri River flowing through again,” Sims said. The final bit of construction will provide a walkway across the front of the dam, giving inspectors better access to the bladders. Now, crews must drop ladders to do twice-a-year inspections. “It was a difficult and somewhat dangerous process to get down on the spillway crest,” Sims said. “We’ll be able to get down there and do more routine inspections any day of the week.” The new eight-ton bladders must be lifted by crane onto a semi and then backed across the dam. A crane then lifts the bladder onto the spillway, where crews must secure 192 bolts to hold it in place. “One big thing about the new bladders is that they engineered it so there’s no big seam that can fail,” Sims said. “In my mind, these could last 30 to 35 years.” Crews expect to have the project completed by early July. DNRC hoped to have the project done in June, but subzero temperatures and snow that stuck around from late-February into early March delayed progress, Sims said. Until construction wraps up, the upper campground near the dam will remain closed. “This is a time-

4 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu sensitive activity,” said John Grassy, DNRC public information officer. “We need to be delivering water by the end of May.”

(FEMA to the rescue) Excitement Builds as Lake Delhi Prepares to Kick Off Construction on the Dam By Jill Kasparie, Reporter, Apr 20, 2014, kcrg.com

Lake Delhi, Iowa - After three summers of minimal water activity and summer business just as dry as the lake itself, the Lake Delhi dam is finally being rebuilt. People who live or vacation there are ready to celebrate the kickoff of construction work during a ground-breaking ceremony this week. This announcement comes nearly four years after the Lake Delhi Dam breached during a period of heavy rain in Delaware County in July of 2010. "In my mind it has never been a question of if, it has only been a question of when,” said Lake Delhi Resident Warren Wortman. Wortman is more than ready for reconstruction to begin. He has called the lake home for 20 years and said the last four just haven't been the same. "Different, quiet. I hate the quiet. It'll be nice to have all of the people back,” Wortman said. Right now, the lake isn't much to see. At some places it's just a tiny stream of the Maquoketa River.

This Thursday, officials at Lake Delhi are planning to welcome people to celebrate the reconstruction. It’s a celebration that brings the community another step closer to once again seeing the lake they all remember. "All of the folks that have ever been participating into this project, certainly have been invited. We are inviting everyone in the State of Iowa,” said Lake Delhi Combined Recreational Facility and Water Quality District's Steve Leonard. The ground- breaking event marks the beginning of phase one, which focuses on the structure of the dam. That work includes replacing the gates, working on electrical equipment and repairing concrete. Later this year, lake officials said crews will start work on the spillway. Officials are still waiting on receiving the DNR permit needed to start work on that portion of the structure. It's expected in the next few weeks. "We are going to be able to more than double the capacity of the water flow down this river or in any kind of a flooding event in the future. That's the first good story. From a safety perspective, we’ve got more than double the capacity than what we had,” Leonard said. As for Warren, he’s thrilled to see things happening again by the lake, including new home construction and shoreline restoration projects. Seeing the equipment by the dam, however, makes the construction project a reality. "People have been waiting for this day to see work started,” Wortman said. The Lake Delhi ground-breaking ceremony to officially kick off construction will take place on Thursday, April 24. A short ceremony is scheduled for noon at the site of the dam.

(A lot of press for dam removal!) Balmoral and Marland dam removal projects gain traction By boston.com, April 21, 2014, by Beth Treffeisen, Globe Correspondent

Water rushes down the narrow embankments where it reaches an historic low arch stone bridge. From there it spills over the Balmoral Dam, creating a small waterfall that collects trash. For 25 miles through northeastern Massachusetts, water flows down the Shawsheen River from its headwaters in Concord and Lexington to the city of Lawrence, where it enters the Merrimack 5 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu River. The goal of the Andover Conservation Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center is to re-establish the free-flowing river to create an ecosystem that can support recreational and economic value to the communities of the watershed. There are plans to take down both the Balmoral and Marland Place Dam, also known as Steven’s Street Dam, within the next two years. The Andover Conservation Commission still does not have the approval to take down the Ballardvale Dam, which is located upstream from the other two dams. “All of them were mill dams, and what’s important is hundreds and hundreds and thousands of them are around the state but very, very few of them are used for mill purposed anymore,” said Bob Douglas, the director of conservation in Andover. “They are kind of relics of an industrial age that has long since passed. Now it’s time for nature to run its course.”

For a river to be healthy it must be able to transport water, sediment, nutrients and organic material, support fish and maintain good water quality. Dams fragment the river, which can cause low dissolved oxygen, high temperatures, high nutrition accumulation and sinks for toxics. According to Alison Bowden, the Freshwater Program Director at The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts, there are about 1,400 recorded dams in the state but about 2,800 dams don’t reach the threshold of height to be recorded. Bowden said that the controversy behind getting the dams removed is that residents have a sense of loss when the environment changes when they lose a pond or a particular setting. Bowden also said the biggest misconception people have is that dams control floods, but they will only mitigate floods if they are designed to do it. “As the water level comes up, it gets higher and higher and it will get flooded,” said Bowden. “It is sort of like a bathtub. Once you get to the top of the bathtub it can’t hold any more water.” In Massachusetts there are only 43 dams that are designed for flood control. The Balmoral and Marland Place dams in Andover are not designed to mitigate flooding. This is one of the reasons why conservationists want to take down the dams. Bob Decelle, the special projects manager for Andover Conservation Commission, said that the construction of the Balmoral Dam by William Wood over a hundred years ago for ornamental purposes ended up costing the environment. “The environmental disaster that he created, other than filling in those wetlands, was that he built these bridges on the other side,” said Decelle pointing towards the Balmoral Dam. “When the water rises above the arch it can’t go through the bridge so it goes around the bridge.” The last time Andover got struck with a flood was on Mother’s Day in 2007. Decelle said that it caused millions of dollars of damage and a tremendous displacement of people. The water is channelized, which causes it to rise quickly and then have nowhere to go but out. The removal of the dam will lower the level of the river that will help a little with flooding. “This will be nice, but it’s not going to improve the flooding issues,” said Decelle. “The bridges do the holding back.” There is currently nothing that the conservationists can do about the bridges because they are historic. The Andover Conservation Commission wants to take the lower dams down first in order for the animals and fish to get used to it. The cost of removing the smaller of the two dams, the Balmoral, will cost about $2,000 and the process will include diverting the water through a pipe in order to get an excavator in to take out the stones that make up the dam. Suzanne Robert, a resident of Andover with a background in technical hydrology and environmentalism, claims that she is the sole person fighting the removal of the Marland Place Dam.

“The whole reasoning if you take down the dams the fish will come back is erroneous,” said Robert. “Because I don’t think the water quality as it stands now will sustain this. This is an urban river.” Robert’s doesn’t want the Marland Place Dam to be removed because it will flush out the millpond that it is supporting. That ecosystem supports animals including beavers, muskrats, herrings, and snapping turtles. Robert said that when they remove the dam the millpond would turn into a mudflat allowing invasive plants to migrate into where the millpond once was. Although Roberts is against removing the Marland Place Dam she is still in support of removing the Balmoral Dam because it poses a safety issue. \ The Balmoral is a low-head dam that is extremely dangerous because it serves as a vortex. Once you’re in it, it will keep you there until you drown according to Decelle. Another safety issue concerning the removal of the dams is toxic material that is left behind from industrial times that could be stored in the river’s sediment. Douglas says that the sediment needs to be cleaned before they release the sludge of mercury or some other chemicals down the river. “You can imagine a dry material doesn’t weigh anything, 6 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu but you hydrate that with lots and lots of water and it becomes really heavy and hard to move and when its toxic it can only be disposed of in very specific places,” said Douglas. The cost of removing chemicals can be really expensive. Testing at the Marland Place Dam showed small amounts of cambium that will continue to be tested for. In Vermont, dams are being revitalized. William Scully, a mechanical worker, restaurant and storeowner recently bought a hydropower dam that will be running by October or November of this year. He hopes the dam will offset Vermont’s energy dependency from other states. Scully also worked with the community to clean up the surrounding area including trash from a park and conducting a Brownfield remediation of an old paper mill. In order to clean up the PCPs and dioxin chemicals from the site Scully had to borrow $50,000 from the federal government. When it comes to deciding whether or not a dam should be removed, Scully believes that it is a really complicated question to answer. For him, it’s not just saving the fish but also what the dam has to offer. “The overarching thing is I think about all of this, great worry about the fish, but you know what, in 50 years that’s the stupidest thing in the world you can worry about because there won’t be an environment,” said Scully. “We actually have to attack the greenhouse gas pollution and green energy problem as much as we attack anything else.”

(For a project worth $2 – $3 Billion, it’s well worth the price.) Wanapum Dam Fix Could Cost $61 Million By Anna KingNorthwest News Network | April 22, 2014, opb.org

Officials in central Washington reveled the latest update on how much it will cost to fix the massive crack in Wanapum Dam — and how long it will take. It’s all bad news. Grant County utility district officials say it will take until at least past the Fourth of July weekend. That’s not good for migrating salmon and boaters dealing with the drawdown of the Columbia River behind the dam. And then there’s the price tag of $61 million. About a third of that is from the crack investigation, guarding the river shore, and the loss of power production. The rest is the fix itself. The plan so far involves a suturing job of sorts. Steel cabling will be threaded through the broken spillway to anchor it to the bedrock. And grout will be squeezed in to fill in the crack. The utility district’s Thomas Stredwick says his agency should be able to absorb the financial hit by using some of its savings and taking out further loans. He adds, “Rate increases are a tool that we’re going to use essentially as a last result.” Preliminary studies show that the concrete make-up of Wanapum is still strong. That leaves investigators looking at the construction and the design of the dam.

(Some people still don’t get it! We all get the benefits of dams! Flood control, food, hydropower, etc., etc., etc.) Temperance Flat Dam: a loser? By Michael Fitzgerald | April 22, 2014 | blogs.esanjoaquin.com

The drought and state water crisis have amplified calls by water exporters for another dam on the above near Fresno. More storage does sound reasonable. But an economic analysis by Jeffrey Michael at University of the Pacific’s Business Forecasting Center found that the costs of the proposed Temperance Flat Dam will be twice the value of the benefits. Michael found the government has exaggerated the dam’s broad economic benefits to the public. That led Steve Evans, consultant for Friends of the River to call Temperance Flat a “dead-beat dam.” “These dam projects are supposed to be funded by those who benefit from them,” said Evans, “but instead, bogus public benefits will foist huge costs on the taxpayer for very few real benefits, while a handful of powerful water barons will reap the water supply benefits and pay nearly nothing.” This project deserves a fair hearing — which is to say I’m not going to dismiss a dam out of hand because Friant proved so disastrous for the San Joaquin River or 7 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu because dams give me the willies. But this objection rings so true. It would be just like the astute “water barons” to shunt the costs onto taxpayers. It would be just like ’s emasculated regulators and bought-and-paid-for politicians to enable them.

Hydro: (Since when does size have anything to do with it? They just don’t want something cheaper to get in the way of their tax subsidies!) Only the Right Kind of Need Apply By Peter Wilson, April 19, 2014, americanthinker.com

Rent-seekers in the Massachusetts renewable energy industry are “raising alarms” about abundant, clean hydroelectricity from Quebec. They argue that Renewable Portfolio Standards – mandates forcing utilities to purchase renewable energy – ought to subsidize “less competitive renewable energy projects.” Wind and solar qualify – even Big Wind and Big Solar – but Big Hydro doesn’t make the cut.

From the Boston Globe: Should hydroelectricity produced with massive dams be counted as clean energy? That is the issue emerging as a result of new legislation that would allow utilities to meet the state’s mandates to cut greenhouse gases by acquiring power from large-scale hydroelectric projects, such as Hydro-Québec in Canada. Environmentalists say the bill, backed by the Patrick administration, would provide preferences to an established technology that does not really need them, while hurting the competitiveness of emerging renewable sources, such as solar and wind, that do. New England power plant owners worry the legislation would provide an unfair advantage to an already low-cost competitor.

A second Boston Globe article quotes Seth Kaplan, Vice President for Policy and Climate Advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation: A key fix would be to tweak the bill to “explicitly foster” the use of clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels. Another change in the legislation, [Kaplan] said, would be to find a way to ensure that hydropower projects, which use a mature technology, are not directly competing with less competitive renewable energy projects. “If amended appropriately,” Kaplan said, “it could help us reach our climate and energy goals.” Those goals include cutting greenhouse gas emissions – blamed for accelerating climate change – by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Here’s what the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has to say about hydroelectricity: Hydropower’s GHG emissions factor (4 to 18 grams CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour) is 36 to 167 times lower than the emissions produced by electricity generation from fossil fuels. Compared to other renewables, on a lifecycle basis hydropower releases fewer GHG emissions than electricity generation from biomass and solar and about the same as emissions from wind, nuclear, and geothermal plants. To his credit, Gov. Patrick could have let the Renewable Portfolio Standards he created hit the fan after he leaves office. He has, however, expressed some sense of accountability for his pie-in-the-sky regulations: The bill’s sponsors and Patrick administration officials say hydroelectricity needs to be part of the clean energy mix if the state is to meet the goals of the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050 […] the state needs to find new energy sources to replace aging coal and nuclear power plants...the power system could lose 8,300 megawatts of generation – about a fourth of the region’s total – by 2020. Aging nuclear plants are not being replaced? One thought: Jane Fonda’s fear-mongering in The China Syndrome about a nuclear meltdown tunneling a hole to China. Coal plants are not being replaced? Barack Obama, 2008: "If someone wants to open a coal power plant then they can. It’s

8 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu just it will bankrupt them because they'll be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas being emitted.” In addition, nearly all of the hydroelectric capacity in the United States was built before the mid-1970s. Of the 25 largest dams under construction, 13 are in China, none in North America. That’s because, as George Bachrach of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, remarks: “We support hydro, but we want it to be the right kind of hydro.” Big Hydro just isn’t the right kind of hydro. Small hydro is good, micro-hydro even better. Think of how neat it would be if we all built a hydro generating station in the brook crossing the country estate. Every little bit counts! Fortunately for Gov. Patrick, the New England states share a long border with the Province of Quebec. Since the late 1940s, the Quebec provincial government has developed the tremendous hydroelectric resources north of the St. Lawrence River and around James Bay. To date, the province has built 60 generating stations in what is, aside from the sparse aboriginal populations, uninhabited wilderness. Hydro-Québec’s largest dam, Robert-Bourassa, ranks 8th in the world.

Above: Robert-Bourassa Generating Station with the Staircase of the Giants spillway. Length: 9,301 feet. Height: 450 feet. Capacity: 5,616 Mw. Total capacity for the La Grande Complex: 16,527 Mw.

9 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu La Grande-4. Length: 12,500 feet. Height: 410 feet. Installed capacity: 2,779 MW.

Daniel-Johnson Dam. Length: 4,311 feet. Height: 702 feet. Installed capacity: 2,656 MW.

It’s clearly not a fair fight between these “massive dams” and the rooftop solar panel. And just when solar power in Massachusetts was growing in leaps and bounds! Rebates and subsidies have spurred dramatic growth, from 3 Mw installed capacity in 2008 to 464 MW in 2013, making the state 5th in the country in installed solar capacity. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 286 solar companies employ 6,400 people Massachusetts. “In 2013, $789 million was invested in Massachusetts to install solar…This represents a 50% increase over the previous year, and is expected to grow again this year.” And yet…in Massachusetts, solar panels receive an average of 4 hours of sun; their capacity factor is rated at 13%. Therefore, the installed capacity of 464 Mw per hour x 24 hours x 365 days would yield 4.0 terawatt hours at 100% of capacity, but the actual generation is 0.53 Tw/h. (These are my calculations, since state and federal reports combine solar and wind with “Other Renewables.”)

Numerous wind farms are being constructed, but few have come on line. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency: “Most new renewable generating resources planned in New England

10 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu are wind-powered, and Massachusetts has set a goal of 2,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2020. About 5% of that capacity [100 Mw] was in place by mid-2013.” To summarize the above: Installed Capacity Annual Generation

Megawatts/hour (Terawatt hours) Robert-Bourassa 7,722 Mw 26.5 Tw/h Hydro-Québec Total 35,829 Mw 213.3 Tw/h Three Gorges Dam, China 22,500 Mw 80.0 Tw/h Massachusetts solar 464 Mw 0.53 Tw/h Massachusetts wind 100 Mw 0.26 Tw/h Massachusetts retail sales of 57.1 Twh Electricity After all the RPS mandates, rebates, carve-outs, subsidies; after $789 million spent in 2013; after an explosive growth of the industry, solar power provides less than 1% of Massachusetts’s electricity. I agree that cheap, efficient, low-carbon renewable hydropower doesn't need special preferences. But when Mr. Kaplan and other environmentalists talk about “hurting the competitiveness” of wind and solar, they mean, making them less competitive in the market for government handouts. Out in the real world, wind and solar are less competitive because they’re expensive and cannot come close to meeting the electricity needs of an industrial society. If your “climate and energy goals” (not mine) are to cut greenhouse gas emissions, you should be clamoring for more hydroelectricity in the mix. Demanding affirmative action for disadvantaged classes of green energy is a sign that the real goal is to keep the gravy train rolling along. (To make money, the rates must go UP!) Firm says changes would nix $900 million dam deal AP, dailyinterlake.com, April 18, 2014

Billings, MT — NorthWestern Energy would have to walk away from a $900 million deal to buy 11 hydroelectric dams in Montana if forced to make changes recommended by the state Consumer Counsel, an executive for the South Dakota-based utility said Thursday. NorthWestern Vice President John Hines said the utility would have to go to the open market to get more power if the deal with PPL Montana falls through, which could drive up rates. The Montana Consumer Counsel is a state agency that represents consumers in utility hearings. It says the deal as proposed would pass along too many costs to consumers and increase electricity bills more than twice as much as NorthWestern has claimed. The Public Service Commission must approve the deal with PPL. Commissioners on Thursday in Billings held one of a series of listening sessions on the proposal, with most people who commented voicing their support. A public hearing on the matter will be held in Helena in July, with a final decision in September. NorthWestern serves 342,000 electricity customers in Montana.

NorthWestern and PPL Montana worked on the deal since last summer and announced the sale agreement in October. PPL bought the dams on the Missouri and Clark Fork rivers from Montana Power Co. during deregulation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Combined, the 11 dams have capacity to generate 633 megawatts of electricity, or as much as a large coal-fired power plant. As a merchant utility that sells power on the market and not directly to Montana consumers, PPL does not fall under the auspices of the PSC. NorthWestern does, which gives the state more influence over the utility company’s decisions. Consumer Counsel attorney Monica Tranel said NorthWestern inflated the size of the hydro deal by adding in the costs of anticipated environmental regulations that could make electricity more expensive in the future. She referred to those costs as a “carbon tax” and said they had driven up the purchase price by about $250 million — a cost that NorthWestern would be able to pass on to ratepayers if the PSC approves the deal. “This shifts the risk from the shareholders to the ratepayers,” Tranel said. “Their incentive is to get the highest possible price they can, knowing they can pass that cost on to you.” Hines said NorthWestern’s offer for the dams would not be viable if it had not factored in the costs of future regulations. He said PPL simply could find another buyer willing to pay a higher amount. 11 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Despite an immediate increase in rates — about 5 percent, or $4 per month on the average residential bill — Hines said prices would stabilize over time for its Montana customers even if market prices elsewhere go up. Gary Buchanan, a Billings investment adviser and former director of the state Commerce Department, said Montana can never regain what it lost when the dams were sold. But he said a sale to NorthWestern would ensure that they were not bought by a hedge fund or other investor with no obligation to consumers and that could ship the electricity generated out of state. “The genie will never go back,” Buchanan said. “It really is important who owns these things.”

(Time for a hydro quiz! Small hydro, some over 100 years old!) Duke Behnke's Watchdog Q&A: We're still getting power from Fox River Apr. 19, 2014 | postcrescent.com

Q With today’s smarts, why can’t we put generators in the Fox River under the Memorial Drive or College Avenue bridges in Appleton to generate power ? The water is running 24/7. A Power companies have hydroelectric generators in the Fox River at the sites you mentioned. We Energies owns and operates a hydroelectric plant that’s built into the Upper Appleton Dam below the Memorial Drive Bridge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the rest of the dam. We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said the power plant has been in operation since 1901, when it was built by Wisconsin Traction, Light, Heat and Power Co., a predecessor of We Energies. The plant generates about 11,500 megawatt hours annually. McNulty said that provides enough electricity to power 1,600 homes each year.

Kaukauna Utilities owns and operates a small hydroelectric plant at the Lower Appleton Dam below the College Avenue bridge. It’s one of seven hydroelectric plants that Kaukauna Utilities operates on the Fox River. The Appleton plant was built in 1911 and was acquired by Kaukauna Utilities in 1974. “There are six turbines spinning with the water coming through, and they connect to three generators, which produce electricity,” said Jeff Feldt, general manager of Kaukauna Utilities. “They’re still operating the way they did 103 years ago.” Feldt said the plant produces about 2,200 megawatt hours annually, or enough electricity to power 300 homes each year. The current of the Fox River also is being harnessed by seven hydroelectric generators at the Middle Appleton Dam below Olde Oneida Street. Neenah Paper operates six generators to produce a significant amount of the power needed by its Appleton mill, and North American Hydro operates one generator capable of producing 850 megawatt hours annually.

(Press release – excerpts) AP&T Files FERC Preliminary Permit for West Creek Hydro Project Near Skagway April 21, 2014, sitnews.us

(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - Alaska Power & Telephone announced today that it has filed a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permit application for the West Creek Hydropower project. The proposed 25 MW project would be located on West Creek, a tributary of the Taiya River, near the City of Skagway in southeast Alaska. The West Creek project would provide a new supply of clean, renewable energy to the communities of Skagway and Haines, reducing dependency on diesel-fired generation, and ensuring a supply of affordable renewable energy for future community and economic growth. Energy surpluses not used by the community could be used to power cruise ships berthing in Haines and Skagway, and help meet the growing energy needs of Canada’s neighboring Yukon Territory.

(Don’t you just love a good turbine photo?)

TVA modernizing turbines at its dams

12 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu New hydro units increase power production By Ed Marcum, April 22, 2014, knoxnews.com

Workers install a 217 ton hydro turbine at Watts Bar Dam on Friday, April 18, 2014. The new turbine is part of TVA’s modernization project which will increase the power plant’s production capacity. TVA crews worked Monday on finishing installation of a 217-ton hydro turbine at Watts Bar Dam as TVA continues an effort to modernize its dams.

(Press Release – Excerpts.) DOE loan program opportunity includes hydropower, pumped storage

NHA Members -

As reported earlier in the NHA Today, last week the DOE Loan Program Office announced a new multi-billion dollar solicitation under the Section 1703 loan program. As part of the solicitation, the DOE is seeking to support proposals for both hydropower and pumped storage projects. Click here on the NHA website for the solicitation.

NHA wanted to further highlight this opportunity and provide additional details. Potential types of eligible projects for the hydro industry may include, but are not limited to: Advanced Grid Integration and Storage: a) renewable energy generation, including distributed generation, incorporating storage; b) smart grid systems incorporating any combination of demand response, energy efficiency, sensing, and storage to enable greater penetration of renewable generation. Enhancement of Existing Facilities: a) incorporation of power production into currently non- powered dams; b) inclusion of variable speed pump-turbines into existing hydro facilities.------.

Water: (Water, water, isn’t anywhere. Where are you?) The drought hitting 40 percent of the entire country, in 5 maps By Reid Wilson, April 17, 2014, washingtonpost.com

With a hot summer and wildfire season right around the corner, huge chunks of the western United States are experiencing record droughts. Parts of California, Nevada and Arizona are drier than they have been in 1,200 years, putting at risk millions of acres of farm and forest lands. Every inch of five states — California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Nebraska — are experiencing some level of drought. Much of the northern Texas Panhandle is under extreme or exceptional drought warning, as is most of California and parts of northern Nevada. A weekly snapshot of drought conditions shows 21 percent of the country is experiencing severe drought or worse; all told, 40.9 percent of the country is under some kind of drought watch or warning.

13 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Here’s the national map, produced weekly by a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Agriculture Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

Here’s the Western United States, where things are particularly bad:

Nebraska and Kansas are experiencing serious drought conditions:

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

And Texas and Oklahoma are dry as a bone:

15 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu California’s plight is particularly bad. Two-thirds of the state are experiencing extreme or exceptional drought. Not a single acre of the state’s land has a normal amount of precipitation.

(And, if it doesn’t rain – then what! Some interesting conversion factors!) Dam flows boost Trinity River for now; officials say dry conditions mean less water released into river Lorna Rodriguez, The Times-Standard POSTED: 04/24/2014 02:18:37 AM PDT0 COMMENTS

As Lewiston Dam waters are released into the Trinity River, CA officials are advising the public to use caution while visiting its banks, even though this year's flow into the river will be reduced on account of the statewide drought. ”It's a relatively rare event, but it's not outside the realm of possibility,” said Ernest Clarke, a science program coordinator for the Trinity River Restoration Program, a multi-agency program made up of organizations including the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. “We're making the appropriate flow release.” The flows started increasing Wednesday, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation public affairs officer Louis Moore said. Up to 1,500 cubic feet of water per second -- the equivalent of 75,000 to 80,000 jugs of water or basketballs, according to Moore -- will be released each day until the end of May before being reduced. The rates are expected to drop to 1,200 cfs in early June, and will dip to the summer level of 450 cfs on June 26. A total of 369,000 acre feet -- an acre foot is 326,000 gallons -- will be released during this “critically dry” water year, according to the bureau. During “extremely wet” years, 815,000 acre feet are let out. ”You need the entire suite,” Clarke said. “You don't just need extremely wet years.” Temperatures suitable for fish will still be maintained, and fine sediment will still be flushed through the system, he added. The releases are designed to scour sediment in the river and undermine willows on gravel bars as part of a long-term restoration effort after the fish population was impacted by the construction of dams, Moore said. ”It's really to ... make the river a better environment. Not just for the species, but also for other wildlife and users of the river system,” he said. As the river level rises, people are advised to take safety precautions, including being aware of the dam release schedule and taking note that the water temperature will hover around 55 degrees, officials said.

”The flows can dump pretty rapidly when they start the releases,” National Weather Service spokesman Troy Nicolini said. “People often don't understand even if you're a very strong 16 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu swimmer, the very cold water can diminish their ability to swim very rapidly. ”The process is called cold water paralysis,” he added. “It sends all of the blood from the arms and legs into the torso to keep the organs warm.” People are also encouraged to remember the river is always changing. ”The river people recreated on last summer is not the same as this summer,” Nicolini said. “It's important not to assume a river is completely unchanged from one summer. ”I'm not trying to scare people away from the river. It's a great place to recreate. I'm just trying to make people aware,” he said. At a glance: A schedule of the flow releases can be found at usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=46566

  Other Stuff: (Sounds like dam builders should look into this!) Advanced Concrete Could Last More Than A Century Without Maintenance By Michael Keller, 4/20/14, gizmodo.com

A new water-repellant concrete impregnated with tiny superstrong fibers promises to leave roads and bridges free of major cracks for up to 120 years. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee civil engineers have developed a concrete mix that is durable and superhydrophobic. They call it Superhydrophobic Engineered Cementitious Composite (SECC). Preventing normally porous concrete from absorbing water means that liquid can't get inside, freeze, and cause it to crack. The concrete's unusual characteristics, including being significantly more ductile than traditional concrete, means that cracks that do form do not propagate and cause failure. "Our architecture allows the material to withstand four times the compression with 200 times the ductility of traditional concrete," said associate professor Konstantin Sobolev, whose lab created SECC. A report available on the Government Finance Officers Association lists the useful life of typical concrete roadways as 30 years and concrete bridges and culverts as 40-45 years. The UWM team says their improved material will hold up with little or no maintenance for well over a century.

To impart the characteristics in the material they wanted to see, they doped their mix with superhydrophobic additives based on siloxane, a compound that forms the backbone of silicones, mixed with superfine powders. Together, these form a microscopic spiky surface nearly impermeable to water. They also added unwoven polyvinyl alcohol fibers, each the width of a human hair, which are strong enough to let the concrete bend without breaking. "The use of polyvinyl alcohol fibers in engineered cementitious composite proves to be a very effective method to not only improve the ductility of concrete, but to drastically improve its durability," the researchers wrote in a June 2013 report on SECC. "Conventional reinforced concrete is a relatively brittle material which, when loaded, typically causes large cracks. These large cracks allow water to penetrate through the concrete, reaching the reinforcing steel and, in turn, cause the steel to corrode, ultimately leading the failure of the reinforced concrete." Last August, the team laid a 4-by-15-foot slab of their improved material as a patch to a university parking structure. They embedded sensors in their concrete to monitor moisture, stress and load. They are still analyzing whether the SECC they installed in the structure shows the performance improvement they saw in the lab. They say the material, which would cost more than typical concrete, would pay for itself with diminished maintenance costs if it performs as they expect. It would also help with the sorry state of civil infrastructure across the country. "America's infrastructure is in urgent need of restoration/repair, especially in parts of the country exposed to freezing," they wrote in 2013. "Freezing and thawing cycles in northern regions lead to loss of performance, demanding urgent repairs and attention or bridge failures… An engineered high- performance and durable material is required for these elements of infrastructure in order to increase the service life of roadways and to minimize the need for repair."

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

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