11/27/2015
Some Dam – Hydro News TM And Other Stuff i
Quote of Note: “Te beatn pat is te safest, but te tafc’s trrible.” - - Jef Taylor
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: 2013 Talley Vineyards Pinot Noir "Estate" “ No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap. ” - - Thomas Jefferson
1 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Happy Tanksgiving! Dams: (Ask again, are they really dams?) Deadly Brazil dam collapse puts spotlight on mining safety BY GORDON HOEKSTRA, VANCOUVER SUN NOVEMBER 12, 2015, VANCOUVERSUN.COM
A deadly mine tailings dam collapse in Brazil has reignited concerns about safety in British Columbia where a similar collapse at Mount Polley mine last year caused environmental damage but no fatalities. The catastrophic collapse of a dam at the Samarco iron ore mine, a joint venture of Vale SA and BHP Billiton, has left eight confirmed dead, another 21 people missing and hundreds of Brazilians displaced. In the aftermath of the Brazil dam failure last week, both First Nations and environmentalists in B.C. are pointing to research released last summer by U.S.-based conservation groups, including the Center for Science in Public Participation, that predicted there would be more mine dam failures around the world as companies pursue lower- grade ore bodies that require bigger operations to make them economical and produce larger amounts of mine waste. Esdilagh First Nation chief Bernie Mack said he was not surprised by the Brazil disaster given what the research says on the global pace of tailings dam failures.
The Brazil catastrophe, coupled with the Mount Polley failure, shows that British Columbia must take a precautionary approach to tailings dam safety and introduce new standards, said Mack. He is an advocate for treating water in tailings ponds to remove metals, and then releasing it, as a way to minimize water storage and reduce the heights of dams. “I am pro-mining, but at the same time I want it to be done using best practices,” said Mack, whose Interior community is in a region that has operating and proposed mines. The tailings dam failure at Imperial Metal’s Mount Polley gold and copper mine last year released millions of cubic metres of mine waste called tailings into Quesnel Lake, an important salmon-spawning watershed. A B.C. government-commissioned engineering panel recommended moving away from storing mine waste under water and behind 2 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu dams, suggesting the use of dry stacking, but also calling for strengthened tailings dam design regulations. The B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines is reviewing how it will change regulations to implement recommendations from the engineering panel. Sierra Club of B.C. campaigner Jens Wieting said the Brazil tailings dam collapse should be another “wake-up” call to regulators and the mining industry, including in B.C. “What this means is that our governments absolutely have to move forward with clearer regulations, clearer standards,” said Wieting. He said regulators and the mining industry have to seriously consider moving to technologies such as dry stacking, where water is removed from tailings, they are compressed and stacked. B.C.’s chief inspector of mines Al Hoffman said the Brazil dam collapse was a tragedy and offered the province’s condolences to those affected. He noted the cause of the Brazil disaster is unknown.
“B.C. is currently taking a leadership role in Canada and internationally to learn from Mount Polley and will make any necessary changes to regulations and practices to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Hoffman said in a written statement. Mining Association of B.C. president Karina Brino said the industry will be paying close attention to the Brazil incident and to the findings on cause. “The commitment to continuous improvement is there, but we also have to learn how to risk manage and mitigate in light of these two incidents that have happened,” said Brino. She acknowledged that was particularly important given companies are pursuing lower-grade ore bodies, which means larger facilities. A research report by the U.S.-based Center for Science in Public Participation and Bowker Associates released this summer concluded the global rate of serious tailings dam failures was increasing. According to their report, 33 of 67 serious tailings dam failures in the last 70 years took place in the past 20 years. The research was done as a result of the Mount Polley tailings dam failure. Report co-author David Chambers said their research shows that disasters like the one in Brazil are inevitable unless mining practices change.
(Gotta have at least one dam removal article!) Removal of Dam on West River Underway November 12, 2015/ Jo Detz, by ecoRI News staff, ecori.org
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Work recently began on the Pond Lily Dam removal project along the West River. The $800,000 project, taking place within the New Haven Land Trust’s Pond Lily Nature Preserve, will restore migratory fish passage and minimize flooding, according to the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). The flood risk at Pond Lily has been a safety and economic concern for Westville Village District residents and business owners for many years. Removal of the dam will not only protect nearby urban communities, it also will restore fish passage and habitat on 2.6 stream miles and 76 acres of Konold’s Pond habitat for herring, eel and shad, according to the NRCS.
The removal of the dam is funded in part by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, which provides federal emergency funding for Hurricane Sandy recovery and to strengthen natural defenses that can help protect Atlantic Coast communities against future storms. Additional funding was provided by the NRCS and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The project is being administered by Save the Sound, a bi-state program of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment. “This project transforms the landscape to yield a profound and significant benefit to the aquatic resources of the West River,” NRCS resource conservationist Todd Bobowick said. “Not only does it improve the morphological and ecological resiliency of the river, but also is a testament to the resiliency of the partnership made up of federal, state and local resource entities — all dedicated to the rehabilitation of riverine migratory corridors to improve their ecological function.” Project partners include the dam owner, New Haven Land Trust, the city of New Haven, the town of Woodbridge, 3 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Restore America’s Estuaries, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, Solar Youth, Common Ground High School, Trout Unlimited, the Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
(Maintain them or drain them as C says.) Osceola Lake to be drained for dam repairs By Derek Lacey, Times-News Staff Writer, November 15, 2015, blueridgenow.com
Bill Harper usually is in charge of operating the valves at Osceola Lake Dam, but at the beginning of November, he refused to open them. That’s because on Nov. 1, the dam was to be opened to let the 32-acre lake drain completely for state-mandated repairs. Harper’s concern, and why he wouldn't open the valves, is the healthy population of fish in the lake, one that includes bream, 12-pound bass and huge carp that eat the grass. He doesn't want to see a massive fish kill like the one he saw the last time the lake was drained completely, in the early 1980s. Owner Todd Leoni said the plan is to leave a small reservoir in the lake to protect the fish, though Harper has his doubts about the plan, and wants state wildlife officials to oversee the project. Leoni said he doesn't want to see the fish killed either. "I've put a lot of fish in this lake," he said. "I've got to take care of the lake. This is what I have to do."
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that dam,” Harper said. “You can look at it. It’s only holding a third of the water it was designed to hold." The rest is silt, he says, most having run into the lake from the construction of the Champion Hills development. State dam safety officials disagree. On Dec. 15, Leoni was mailed a Dam Safety Order, which required him to submit a plan for the dam's repair developed by a professional engineer in 91 days, or by March 16, 2015. The safety order cited "spalling and cracking of the concrete structure of the dam, depressions, ruts and embankment degradation on the upstream and downstream slopes, unknown operational condition of the early warning system and trees and other vegetation in the emergency spillway, and large trees on the upstream and downstream embankments." The primary issues are adequate spillway capacity and the removal of the trees, said Toby Vinson, section chief in land quality for the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. The N.C. Department of Transportation owns the road and bridge above the dam, and Leoni owns the dam itself.
Leoni, who's owned the lake bed and dam since 1990, said the N.C. Department of Transportation will work to remove the stumps of trees NCDOT cut down in June and fill in the holes left. He'll work to construct a new spillway — essentially a concrete wall in front of the existing one. Leoni said the lake should be completely drained by the middle of next week and hopes to have the work finished three weeks after it starts, around the middle of December. Valves were opened on Nov. 1, but sustained rains kept water levels high in the first week or more of the month. The state considers the dam "high hazard," not because of its condition, but because of the potential damage that could be wrought by its failure, Vinson said. If there's the potential for $250,000 in property damage or loss of life, it's considered a high-hazard dam and is inspected every two years. The Dam Safety Order says it's classified as high-hazard because its failure poses a potential "threat to human life and property" stemming from Kanuga Road, listed as having a traffic count of roughly 4,000 vehicles per day, and an electrical substation located at the intersection of Kanuga Road and Drake Street. "It's not high hazard. They listed it as high hazard, but it's not, and my engineer can attest to that," Leoni said.
4 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Work and repairs at the dam are nearing the final phase, but it has been a contentious path to reach this point. Back-and-forth between Leoni's engineer's plan and state officials have held up the process, and mediation was held Friday. Leoni said he was first notified about the need for repairs in 2008 or 2009, though the state's safety order cites an April 2004 letter. Leoni conducted the study with an engineer, starting the back-and-forth with the state on details that's "been going on for years." The NCDEQ keeps coming back with new requirements every time, he said, additional things that weren't in the original agreement and more. They needed the trees removed, which NCDOT is taking care of, and they're requiring the new spillway, he said, wanting it to be compliant for a 500-year storm, though he pointed out that the area just suffered a big storm when Hurricane Joaquin struck and sustained heavy rains in Henderson County. "I want it to end," Leoni said Thursday, before the mediation. "I need to stop the bleeding."
(Maybe never.) Floods caused dams to fail; now lakefront property owners wonder when water views will return THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, November 15, 2015 - dailyjournal.net
COLUMBIA, South Carolina — South Carolina homeowners living around lakes where dams failed in the historic flooding face uncertainty about when their properties will be waterfront again. The State newspaper reported (http://bit.ly/1lpXJgJ ) that rebuilding dams will cost six figures, and state regulators must approve the work. That means timetables are uncertain. Karen Jones, who has lived on Lake Elizabeth in Richland County for 15 years, said she felt like she was on vacation everyday as residents fished and rode in paddle boats. But the lake's 115-year-old dam failed during the Oct. 4 rains, draining more than 8 million gallons of water. Jones' home now looks over 32 acres of muddy ground. "I don't know when we're going to get the lake back," Jones said. "I'm sure property values will go down tremendously. People are worried about that."
Home values are at stake when a lake is drained. Lakefront land could make up 30 percent to 40 percent of a home's total value, said former Richland County assessor John Cloyd. Land typically accounts for 20 percent to 25 percent a home's total value, he said. As neighborhood associations work on plans to rebuild dams, homeowners can get short-term help by filing appeals with the county assessor to lower next year's property taxes. Appeal requests are due by Jan. 15 in Richland County. Last month's storm, which dumped more than a foot of rain in one day, swelled creeks and knocked out 36 dams statewide, including 16 in Richland County. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has asked dam owners for assessments of the damage and action plans. The agency also pledged to work with dam owners to plan the repair and restoration. Lakeside homeowners need to be patient, said Jay Graham, whose Columbia real estate firm has a listing on Upper Rocky Ford Lake. "This is a four-act play and we're in the first act," he said. Graham said he could understand the hesitation of potential homebuyers so soon after the flooding. But Graham said that less than two years after Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989, real estate started selling well along portions of the S.C. coast. "It will come back," he said.
(So-called dams are failing everywhere.) Mining company in Brazil says 2 other dams at risk of breaching near earlier deadly dam burst By The Associated Press November 17, 2015, theprovince.com
RIO DE JANEIRO - Two more dams at the iron ore mine that suffered a dam breach earlier this month are at risk of bursting and are undergoing emergency repairs, mining company officials said Tuesday Klebber Terra, the director of operations at the Samarco mine in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, said blocks of rocks were being used to reinforce the two dams, reported G1, the Internet portal of the Globo television network. Terra told a news conference that the work will take up to three months, G1 said. "We are very sympathetic and distraught about what happened. We work with the best dam monitoring technicians but we cannot say that this tragedy could have been avoided," Terra said in comments carried by O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper. 5 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Company officials also said that only one, not two dams as earlier reported, burst on Nov. 5. That breach unleashed a massive wave of mud, debris and water that practically wiped out the nearby hamlet of Bento Rodrigues, contaminated a river that's the source of water for residents of two states, and devastated aquatic life. Officials have called the contamination the worst-ever environmental disaster in Brazil.
The state fire department has said that at least seven people died in the disaster. There are another four bodies awaiting identification and 12 more people missing. A separate report on Tuesday in the Estado de S.Paulo cited a lawmaker who said the accident caused an estimated $2.6 billion to $3.7 billion in damages. Rep. Leonardo Quintao said he based the estimate on assessments by parliamentary technical experts, the report said. Samarco, which is jointly owned by mining giants Vale of Brazil and BHP Billiton of Australia, has signed a deal with the state and federal public prosecutors' office to pay $250 million in damages.
(Excerpts. Why doesn’t he look happy?) BHP faces billions in compensation after mine dam collapse, say protesters Australian Associated Press, 18 November 2015, theguardian.com
BHP Billiton should prepare to pay billions of dollars in compensation for the deadly dam disaster in Brazil, campaigners picketing the mining company’s annual general meeting have said. Big business should rebalance demands of shareholders with wider issues The Samarco disaster in Brazil could be as big a corporate disaster as Deepwater Horizon – is corporate governance failing employees and the planet? Charles Roche, from the Mineral Policy Institute, said the bursting of a dam containing waste known as tailings from an iron ore mine in south-east Brazil on 5 November, unleashing a torrent of sludge more than 400km downstream, was not an isolated incident. The multinational had to change the way it operated to ensure the failure at its co-owned Samarco mine was not repeated. “BHP has a long history with problems with tailings,” Roche said during a protest outside the company’s annual general meeting in Perth on Thursday. “This doesn’t compare well with their stated policy not to dump tailings in the river.”
Greenpeace estimated the overall cleanup and compensation would be in the billions of dollars. A protester outside the BHP Billiton annual general meeting in Perth on Thursday. The chairman of BHP, Jac Nasser, told the meeting the company was committed to finding out why the dam collapsed, killing at least 11 people. Eight people are missing. “I commit to you that we will find out what went wrong,” he said. The company had brought forward the next review of all tailings dams in which BHP has an interest. There are about 3000 around the world. It would release the findings of an external investigation into the incident once it was completed. “We will learn from these tragic events and do all we can to never see them repeated,” Nasser said. Most of the nearby village of Bento Rodrigues was destroyed in the disaster and drinking water in the area was contaminated. The Brazilian authorities declared a state of emergency in more than 200 towns affected. About 500km of river in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais and the neighbouring state of Espirito Santo was polluted, destroying crops and killing fish. The mine is jointly owned by BHP and the world’s largest mining firm, Vale.
6 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu BHP hit by perfect storm of dam disaster, falling prices and China fears. The death toll from the dam burst climbed to nine with 19 still missing as the company faced questions about regulation and huge clean-up costs. Despite the Samarco woes, a plunging stock market value and the falling price of many of its main commodities such as coal and iron ore, BHP committed to its controversial progressive dividend policy. The chief executive, Andrew Mackenzie, told the meeting it was an extraordinarily difficult time for BHP but the company remained strong. “Through productivity gains, we have maintained the ability to pay the progressive dividend, we have increased our capacity to grow your company and we have secured our strong balance sheet which we will never put at risk,” Mackenzie said. Everyone at the company was devastated by the tragedy and the company would support the region in the long term. “We will fully play our part in helping Samarco reconstruct homes, community and spirit,” he said. “All of us recommit to making your company safer and our communities stronger.” Nasser was disappointed with the company’s share price, which has fallen to a 10-year low, but said it was difficult to give a definitive view of where the global economy was heading as major economies went through transition. The company believed global growth would return to healthier levels but would depend on China successfully moving to a consumption and services economy, recovery of growth in developing nations and a healthy US economy.------.
Hydro: (Some scenery and hydro too.) This new startup is doing hydropower right By Ben Adler, 16 Nov 2015, grist.org
The Amtrak trip north along the Hudson River from New York City is one of the most stunning train journeys in the U.S. You roll along the river’s east side looking out at dramatic cliffs and lush hills across the water. Near the train tracks themselves, you get the full spectrum of a Rust Belt riverfront’s uses: active and abandoned industrial sites, new loft-style apartment buildings that capitalize on the views, parks and boat launches. The most dramatic building, by far, is the vacant former power plant in Yonkers, N.Y.: a massive, Romanesque Revival brick edifice with two giant smokestacks. An hour and a half further north, in the bucolic town of Hudson, N.Y., you can get a glimpse of a potential revival for riverfront energy generation. Unlike the Yonkers plant, which burned coal and oil, this is a form of clean, renewable energy with growth potential: small-scale hydropower. The hydropower plant on Kinderhook Creek, a Hudson River inlet, doesn’t look like a power plant at all. Driving past, you wouldn’t even know it’s there. From the road, all you can see is the smokestack of the adjacent factory that it once powered, which now stands empty, an embodiment of America’s industrial decline.
Gravity Renewables
7 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu But there is economic activity happening here: In a pair of cabins on either side of the river, electric generators are together producing enough electricity to power more than 400 households in the Hudson Valley. Here’s how: At a natural waterfall, raised by only a two-inch wooden plank, pipes pull some of the water to the riverbanks, where it turns turbines that power generators the size of a couple refrigerators. The company that owns Chittenden Falls Hydroelectric Project, Gravity Renewables, is a new startup out of Boulder, Colo. “I was at Colorado Public Radio and I was producing stories about energy and the environment,” recalls cofounder and CEO Ted Rose, a 43-year-old former journalist. “Every time one of my guests said the word ‘kilowatt-hour,’ the audience got lost. That’s when I realized the enormity of the disconnect between people and the way electricity is produced. Given that electricity production is such a big piece of the climate puzzle and therefore something everyone had a stake in, I took this as a very interesting communications problem that was also a business opportunity to solve. I joined an energy firm after that and haven’t looked back.” The Chittenden waterfall has been used to generate power since before there was even electricity: In 1809, a paper mill opened on one side of the creek using mechanical power from a wheel the water moved. That was followed by a succession of different factories and mills on both sides. But by the 1960s they had all closed.
In 1979, a New York–area businessman named Paul Eckhoff bought the derelict property and turned it into a small-scale hydropower plant. The local energy utility is required by law to buy hydropower from an independent plant at the same wholesale rate it pays for energy from other sources. It’s hard, though, to make a profit selling power for the same price as much larger hydro projects or natural gas plants. The hydro plant went out of business and was bought by a succession of owners, including three high-school buddies who Rose speculates might have hoped to capitalize on its electricity production to grow weed. (Growing pot is very energy- intensive and unusually high electric bills can lead to growers getting caught.) Whatever their plan was, it never came to fruition. Then in 2013 Gravity Renewables bought the hydroplant. Gravity had a plan for making it economical. In New York state, small-scale hydropower can be sold to a third-party buyer at retail prices. It’s called remote net metering. Net metering is when you send power you produce, from a solar panel, for example, back into the grid and get a credit for each kilowatt-hour off your electricity bill. That’s not useful for a power plant that doesn’t use nearly as much electricity as it produces. But through remote net metering, it can “sell” its electricity to another buyer.
Let’s say, theoretically, that the wholesale rate for electricity is 10 cents per kWh, the retail rate is 15 cents, and it costs the Chittenden Falls plant 11 cents per kWh to produce it. Then Gravity will lose money selling that power to the grid for 10 cents, but it can make money selling it for 13 cents to major electricity buyer. Gravity has acquired a total of seven sites, six in the Northeast and one in North Carolina. “The story is the same all over the Northeast and Southeast, because of shuttered textile mills,” says Rose. In some cases, the company is looking at literally selling directly to a third party, like a nearby factory. But under remote net metering, Gravity doesn’t have to actually sell it physically to the buyer.
For Chittenden Falls, the buyer is Skidmore College, over an hour away in Saratoga Springs, under a contract it signed last year. National Grid, the local energy utility, treats the Chittenden Falls site as if it were on Skidmore’s campus. For every kWh that Gravity sends to the grid, Skidmore gets a credit on its electric bill for the full retail price. Then it pays Gravity a price they have agreed to that falls between the wholesale and retail prices. Chittenden Falls is now producing roughly 18 percent of Skidmore’s energy. It’s a win-win-win: New York gets a cleaner source of energy, Skidmore saves money, and an unused industrial site is repurposed. Of course, National Grid is effectively subsidizing it by paying retail instead of wholesale rates for the power, which is why we’ve seen utilities across the country opposed to any form of net metering, never mind remote net metering. Remote net metering and similar programs like community net metering are only available in a handful of states, mostly in the Northeast. And net metering, while more widely available, is under assault from utilities, fossil fuel companies, and right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.
8 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu The conversation about renewable energy in the U.S. tends to focus entirely on wind and solar. Hydro, which accounts for 6 percent of the U.S. energy portfolio and 18 percent in New York state, tends to be largely forgotten. That’s because just about all of the large-scale dams and hydropower plants that could be built already have been. And large-scale hydro has negative environmental impacts, drowning areas by building up a lot of water behind dams, and replacing free-flowing rivers with stagnant, sediment-filled water, which harms aquatic life. But small-scale hydro has a much lower environmental cost, especially when it uses a natural waterfall. Environmental impact “is largely about the amount of water storage (the reservoir size behind the dam),” explains Karen Kellogg, a professor of environmental studies at Skidmore who brings students to see the Chittenden Falls hydro project. “Greater storage essentially leads to greater sediment buildup, greater changes in streamflow regimes, greater changes to the aquatic communities, greater human population displacement, greater risk to the downstream natural and built environments should there be a failure to the dam, and greater greenhouse gas emissions (although even large hydro is really good on the greenhouse gas front compared to more conventional electricity generation),” she explains in an email.
Small run-of-the-river hydro has a lower carbon footprint than large hydropower dams because it doesn’t cause flooding that releases carbon from vegetation and soil. “Run-of-river dams or weirs, like Chittenden, have the lowest impact, especially considering that there was already a natural abutment in the stream,” Kellogg says. “In terms of environmental impact, this is as low impact as you can get.” And, while the Chittenden Falls plant has only one employee, it now doesn’t sit empty inviting teenagers to vandalize it. “Instead of a social liability, it’s become a social positive that contributes to the tax base,” says Kellogg. And while the energy production is tiny in the grand scheme of things, it’s that social mission that animates Gravity Renewables as much the environmental benefits. Says Rose, “It’s our mission to revitalize and preserve places with a history in their community.” Deindustrialization won’t be reversed, but its effects can be mitigated through the work of green entrepreneurs, one tiny hydro plant at a time.
(Good luck!) Alaska Energy Authority files roadmap for Susitna-Watana hydro dam By Phillip Manning, KTNA – Talkeetna, November 16, 2015, ktoo.org
Even though the state legislature did not give additional funding to the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project this year, the Alaska Energy Authority has some funds left from previous years. AEA is attempting to continue the megaproject’s licensing process. In response to a directive by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Alaska Energy Authority has filed a document that it says is a “roadmap” to the studies performed on the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project from June 2014 onward.
The filing is the latest in an attempt by AEA to resume the integrated licensing process for the proposed hydroelectric megaproject. The integrated licensing process is meant to provide a timeline and schedule for studies, reviews and stakeholder meetings. That schedule was disrupted nearly a year ago after Gov. Bill Walker took office. Walker ordered a halt to spending on six megaprojects in the state, including Susitna-Watana. This summer, the administration lifted that spending freeze. While AEA is once again allowed to spend funds that were appropriated to Susitna-Watana in previous years, the legislature did not designate any additional funds to the project in its session early this year. The result is that the project has around $30 million available. 9 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Of that, AEA says that about $6 million was not already committed. The current filing by AEA is a new section to the initial study report originally filed last year. In the filing, Susitna-Watana Project Manager Wayne Dyok states that the document will act as a “roadmap” to where progress currently stands on each of the 58 studies included in the licensing process. Some stakeholders have asked that AEA be required to file a new initial study report, as thousands of pages of technical memoranda and addendums have been filed over the last year and a half. Now, FERC will decide whether the roadmap gives adequate information to government agencies, NGOs and individuals to review the data before the public meeting review process resumes.
(What’s their logo – like this? CUBE3) Cube Hydro Partners invests in Pennsylvania’s York Haven Hydro Station By Pennsylvania Business Daily Reports, Nov 18, 2015, pennbusinessdaily.com
Cube Hydro Partners, LLC, a hydropower development, operating and investment firm, recently expanded its mid-Atlantic presence by acquiring full ownership of York Haven Hydro Station, a run-of-the-river hydropower facility located in York Haven, Pennsylvania. “We are excited to expand our presence in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) market to include York Haven,” Cube Hydro CEO Kristina Johnson said. “It is one of the oldest and best run hydropower plants in the U.S. with a long history of generating clean, carbon-free and reliable electricity.” With advantageous hydrology conditions, the 20-megawatt facility is likely to produce over 130,000 megawatt-hours of clean electricity per year.
“We are thrilled with this new addition -- the result of Cube Hydro’s focus on exclusively sourced transactions,” John Collins, Cube Hydro’s managing director, said. “York Haven’s proven high capacity factor and availability are an excellent fit for the portfolio.” Cube Hydro Partners, a portfolio company of New York- based independent global infrastructure fund I Squared Capital, invests in, develops and modernizes hydroelectric facilities, consulting on project management, regulation and development of hydroelectric power and other clean energy resources for mid-sized hydro projects in the U.S. and Canada. The company is actively seeking to hire a project manager, project engineer and compliance engineer to work with its team. I Squared Capital has offices in New York, Houston, London, New Delhi, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Environment: (The drought affects everything. Do we know what happened thousands of years ago?) Report: Fish also fought warm water at dams along Columbia this summer By Kate Prengaman, yakimaherald.com, 11/15/15
10 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Hundreds of thousands of sockeye died in hot water on the Columbia River this summer, but a new report says the deadly conditions highlight long- standing problems with the hydropower system. The June heat wave and the lower river flows from Bonneville Dam the drought only exacerbated the well-documented problem that water backed up behind dams warms up, according to a report from the Portland-based Fish Passage Center. So while the dying fish made headlines, the underlying issues and potential solutions didn’t get much attention this summer. “The problem was this was being portrayed as some freakish combination of natural events, and the point is this is caused by the hydrosystem,” said Michele DeHart, director of the center, which provides technical services to the federal, state and tribal agencies that manage fish in the Columbia River. “Over thousands of years, fish managed to survive through droughts and floods, but the development of hydrosystem takes that flexibility away,” she said.
Water temperatures above 68 degrees are understood to be unhealthy for salmon and sockeye, and it’s common for the lower and middle Columbia River to exceed that standard in late summer, but in 2015 the hot water problems began in June. According to the report, water temperatures at dams in the middle Columbia were over 68 degrees for about 45 percent of the returning salmon season. During the past 10 years, an average of 25 percent of the season was too hot. But it was this year’s combination of hot weather and low flows that pushed regular warm water problems into a disaster for sockeye, said state Department of Fish and Wildlife regional fish program Manager John Easterbrooks.
(More on dam removal.) To save the orcas, do we need to demolish dams? By Daniel Jack,16, November 2015, crosscut.com
The show is over — at least it’s almost over. SeaWorld has announced that next year, it will phase out its killer whale performances in San Diego. The theme park has been under fire — and, perhaps more importantly, losing visitors — ever since the 2013 movie Blackfish documented its abusive treatment of captive killer whales. But the whales – endangered Puget Sound orcas, if you prefer – need more than just to be freed from captivity. Not surprisingly, they need to eat. Specifically, they need chinook salmon, says Carl Safina, a former National Audubon Society vice-president for marine conservation who hosted the PBS series entitled Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. And in order to get more threatened, endangered and otherwise diminished chinook into the water, he says, we’ll need to breach the four lower Snake River Dams. Safina laid all this out one night last month at the Seattle Aquarium, where he was the keynote speaker at an unveiling of the 11 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Orca-Salmon Alliance, a coalition of regional and national environmental groups formed to “prevent the extinction of the Southern Resident Killer Whales by recovering the wild Chinook populations upon which the whales depend.” Member groups include Earthjustice, Save Our Wild Salmon, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The orca-salmon connection is clear. Killer whales live all over the world. Some eat other marine mammals. The southern resident population that we see in Puget Sound eats fish. This is a cultural adaptation, like vegetarianism or my Neapolitan uncle Claude’s fondness for the cooking of southern Italy. For a Puget Sound orca, food primarily means salmon, above all chinook salmon, presumably because chinook grow bigger and fattier than other species and therefore provide a better return on a killer whale’s investment of hunting energy. But when your favorite food winds up on the endangered species list, you’ve got a problem. Puget Sound chinook were listed as threatened in 1999. Four populations of Columbia River system chinook, including two on the Snake, have also been listed, as have fish in the Upper Willamette, and California coastal, Central Valley, and Sacramento River winter run chinook.
An orca’s options aren’t what they used to be. These days, when the killer whales swim in and around Puget Sound, their main source of chinook lies north of the border: the Fraser River. Not surprisingly, Southern Resident Killer Whales joined the endangered list themselves ten years ago. Their numbers had dipped to 79 in the first years of this century from an estimated level in the mid-1960s of about 100. Not only were chinook populations depressed; the whales also suffered from the noise of boat engines, which disrupts their hunting, and an assortment of toxic chemicals, which lodge in their blubber. A lack of prey exacerbates the other problems: If a whale is starving, it mobilize its fat reserves, which brings the toxins out of storage. The orca population had rebounded somewhat, but it now languishes in the low 80s. It still shows the effect of whale captures in the late 1960s and early 70s, when hunters herded the whales and took young ones from the pods for SeaWorld and other destinations. The captures finally ended after a 1976 whale roundup in Budd Inlet, more or less in front of the state capitol, horrified an aide to Governor Dan Evans named Ralph Munro, who was sailing nearby, and ultimately, state politicians. (A KING-TV documentary had already started to turn public opinion against the whale captures.) But there’s still a hole in the population where females of breeding age should be.
When I spoke with Safina the day before the aquarium event, he suggested the population must once upon a time have been much, much larger. Scientists have speculated that there may once have been a couple of hundred Southern Resident Killer Whales. Safina envisions “hundreds, maybe even thousands.” He can’t believe a smaller population could have differentiated itself so successfully from its mammal-eating cousins. And he figures that the once-enormous regional salmon runs would have supported a host of killer whales.
* * * Safina, who was also promoting his new book, Beyond Words, about the way non-human beings experience the world, nodded to part of the logic behind the Orca-Salmon Alliance when he said that people who want to save the orcas should “talk about money.” He suggested that casting the northern spotted owl fight of the early 1990s as a conflict between logging and forest preservation was “the biggest mistake the environmental movement has made in this country.” It was too easy for the forest products industry to characterize the choice as “jobs vs. owls.” Instead, Safina argued, the environmental side should have talked up the value of the fish that spawned in the national forests, which were worth as much as the trees. He hopes that people who want to save southern resident killer whales have the sense to argue economics. There’s plenty to argue: He points out that last year, whale watching on the Salish Sea was a $100-million business. (It has taken off since Blackfish.) Save Our Wild Salmon and other fish advocates have long argued that an honest cost-benefit analysis of the lower Snake River dams would make an economic case for dam breaching, too. Those dams not only generate power, they also help lift barges all the way to Lewiston, Idaho. The barges haul wheat and barley from Lewiston to the coast. But a recent economic analysis commissioned by Save Our Wild Salmon concluded that investment in barge
12 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu transportation on the lower Snake returned 43 cents on the dollar. If you believe numbers like that, it’s hard to argue that saving the dams makes more economic sense than saving the fish.
* * * Our knowledge of the orcas’ needs has become more nuanced, but we have known the basics for quite a while. Long before the dams went up, when Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, they found the number of salmon “incredible.” It must have been. This year’s big run of Columbia River chinook, touted as a record, amounts to only about one-third of the number caught in 1883, the last year before the runs were depleted by overfishing and, eventually, the dams. The Southern Resident Killer Whales must have evolved knowing that every year, millions of chinook would appear at the river’s mouth. Things have changed — and they probably must change at least part of the way back in order to build up the population of killer whales. In California, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has basically acknowledged that. In the Northwest, it has not. A 2009 NOAA biological opinion on operation of the California State Water Project and the Central Valley Project called for changing operations — providing less water for agriculture — in order to build up chinook populations on which the orcas rely. In contrast, a series of biological opinions — four rejected by federal courts, a fifth currently awaiting a U.S. district court judgment — on operation of the federal Columbia River system dams has not called for any adjustments to increase the orcas’ food supply. The feds acknowledge the orcas’ dependence on chinook. They just don’t propose doing anything about it. They claim that hatcheries can keep the current chinook numbers from dropping, without acknowledging that if we want more orcas, we have to give them more fish. Acknowledging that might lead to the idea of breaching those Snake River dams — a subject that many people in power, including Washington governors and U.S. Senators, have studiously avoided. The judge who struck down the last three Columbia River biological opinions made it clear that he thought dam breaching should be on the table. But he has retired. What the current judge thinks about the subject has yet to be seen. We have a pretty good idea of what the killer whales need. We certainly know about their decline. Now, Safina said, we have a choice. “Do we want to watch it,” he said, “or do we want to stop it?”
(Another benefit of hydro. Let’s go fishing.) Meldahl Dam fishing pier ready for anglers WENDY MITCHELL, maysville-online.com, 11/18/15
FOSTER | Ready months ahead of schedule, the fishing pier at the Meldahl Dam Hydroelectric Plant is now open to the public. In the past, anglers would line the walls of the dam, and banks of the Ohio River on the Kentucky side, hoping to land a “keeper.” Those activities were displaced or halted when work began on developing the site as a hydroelectric electric plant in 2010. The plant is in the final testing phases before being operational in 2016, officials said. Some fishing continued at a temporary location west of the dam, but access was limited due to construction area needs. The new metal pier, built to accommodate fluctuating river levels, a picnic area, along with rest areas and parking were built as part of the project by City of Hamilton, Ohio. Cost of the recreation area project was $1.5 million, officials said.
The pool below the dam has long been a favorite, generating storied sizes and varieties of fish for sport fishermen. "The new fishing complex at Meldahl Locks and Dam is huge and has the potential for a great fisheries (like) sauger, striped bass, crappie, catfish and so much more.” said Pat Taylor, retired Kentucky Fish and Wildlife officer. “I'm confident this will be a popular fishing destination for Kentucky and Ohio anglers.” The return of fishing at the dam site is another tourism destination Bracken County can be proud of, Taylor said. “Though Bracken County is small, the Meldahl fishing, plus Bracken Creek horse trails and fishing lakes give outdoor enthusiast big opportunities,” Taylor said. The fishing and 13 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu recreational site is accessible by way of Kentucky 8 at Foster; after turning onto the dam access road, cross the CSX railroad tracks and turn to the left for the pier. The recreation area is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with the exception of the restrooms, which are open from dawn to dusk each day, officials said.
Other Stuff: (Moving to the NW would be green too. Most people don’t have a choice.) Timmons Roberts: The greenest thing to do By Timmons Roberts, Nov 13, 2015, providencejournal.com
Last summer, I took about five minutes and switched my electricity from National Grid’s regular plan to a group called People’s Power and Light, which sources electricity from all renewables here in our own region. In those five minutes, I did more to combat climate change than perhaps anything else I do. I pay a bit more each month to have one kilowatt hour of wind, solar and hydro power put into the New England electric grid for every kilowatt hour I use. It’s audited, it’s done locally, and it’s working to incentivize project developers and to push the utilities to develop bigger projects to get us off fossil fuels. Last Saturday I got to see some of that electricity generated. At an event at the historic Slater Mill in Pawtucket, my group saw the way water power turned the complex machines the Slaters and Browns and hundreds of workers used to turn raw cotton into yarn and fabric. The giant 1810 wood waterwheel in the stone Wilkinson mill captured power enough for dozens of machines, with just a 4-foot drop in the river. Bigger mills scattered around the Pawtucket Falls used the 16-foot drop under the Main Street Bridge to the tidal part of the Seekonk.
Then we walked across Main to see the spinning generator of the Bridge Mill hydroelectric facility, which produces 4 million kilowatt hours a year, as much energy as about 3 million pounds of coal. A company called Gravity Renewables now runs the plant, seeking to keep these kinds of facilities running around New England, and refurbishing ones that need some investment. I learned that micro hydro isn’t going to replace fossil fuels by itself, but it provides one small piece of a sustainable zero carbon energy solution for our region. This year, onshore wind reached “grid parity” with coal in some places in the U.S., and solar is closing in quickly. Scientific studies keep piling up, showing that crazy climate impacts such as floods, droughts, hurricanes and heat waves are more intense already, even as the globe has warmed just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since Slater and Brown and the industrial revolution switched from hydro power to coal, oil, and then natural gas. We’re headed above 3.6 degrees unless we move aggressively now to develop a net zero carbon economy. The impacts are unknown, but they will probably drive a spiral of terrible outcomes like melting glaciers and permafrost, and fires in the Amazon and Indonesia. Many serious estimates say we need to get to net zero carbon in the wealthy nations by 2030. How are we going to do that? In our home, we’ve taken three more steps that have gotten us probably most of the way there already. First, we had a free audit done. Then we started buying a mixed biodiesel home heating oil, also through People’s Power and Light. Third, we put a wood- stove insert in the fireplace, which we use all winter. • Electricity use is responsible for about a third of Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions, and heating and cooling buildings is about another third. Transportation is the last third, another story for another day. But the spinning waterwheels and turbines at the Pawtucket hydro plant reminded me that one silver bullet isn’t going to solve this existential crisis facing our species. Rather, many small steps are going to be needed, and a lot of partnerships and creativity. The vast prosperity that came with Slater’s first mill can be seen again in Rhode Island: the benefits of the renewable revolution are already arriving. A recent report showed nearly 10,000 jobs in green energy in our state already. There will be new technology we can pioneer in areas like tidal, wave and offshore wind energy, and thousands of local jobs installing technology developed elsewhere in insulation, installation, and maintenance. Being part of this exciting 14 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu revolution took me just five minutes, in going on the web and switching over to renewable electricity. It’s the easiest, quickest, greenest thing to do.
(It’s nice when you can gain in efficiency.) Efficiency Key to Meeting Carbon Regs in NW By Steven Johnson | ECT Staff WriterPublished: November 16th, 2015, ect.coop
The Pacific Northwest plans to put a premium on energy efficiency as part of a strategy that will enable the region to meet new federal carbon dioxide targets, an advisory council says. Energy efficiency could eventually rival hydropower as an electricity resource in the Northwest, according to a draft power plan. (Photo By: DOE) In a draft plan, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council said energy efficiency can potentially meet all electricity load growth in the region through 2035. If developed aggressively, efficiency even could challenge the size of the Northwest’s hydroelectric output. “It’s not only the single largest contributor to meeting the region’s future electricity needs, it’s also the single largest source of new winter peaking capacity,” according to the Draft Seventh Power Plan, which is available for review through December. The council wants to develop 4,500 megawatts of energy efficiency by 2035. Combined with the planned retirement of three coal plants—existing natural gas generation will replace them—the region as a whole will meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the draft said.
“Meeting the energy-efficiency goals in the draft power plan will reduce electricity bills over time for consumers as well as help keep the regional power supply adequate, reliable, and low- carbon,” Council Chairman Phil Rockefeller said. The efficiency target is ambitious, but Bonneville Power Administration, which markets hydropower to electric cooperatives and public utilities, has acquired about 1,400 megawatts of efficiency in recent years. Efficiency is the third largest electricity resource in the region. The council also is pushing for more demand-response initiatives, saying the Northwest will benefit from voluntary reductions in electricity use during periods of high demand and limited resource availability. “When compared to the alternative of constructing a simple cycle gas turbine, demand response can be deployed sooner, in quantities better matched to the peak capacity need,” it said. The council added that non-hydro renewables can play a role in reducing emissions, but they’re more expensive than energy efficiency. “Deploying renewable resources to achieve maximum carbon reduction presents significant power system operational challenges,” it concluded. The council, charged by Congress with balancing energy and environmental concerns, revises the plan every five years.
15 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.