Some Dam – Hydro Newstm I and Other Stuff
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
6/03/2011 Some Dam – Hydro NewsTM i and Other Stuff Quote of Note: “If you search for a perfect friend without faults, you will remain friendless. - - Unknown “Good wine is a necessity of life.” - -Thomas Jefferson Ron’s wine pick of the week: Four Vines Maverick Zinfandel 2008 “No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.” - - Thomas Jefferson Other Stuff: (You can find a lot of things to not like about the wind folks. They always want a handout on the back of either taxpayers or ratepayers. Tough luck – hydro is cheaper.) Don't stick ratepayers when green power fails tri-cityherald.com, May 24, 2011 Northwest wind farm operators want ratepayers to make up for the industry's losses when oversupply curbs demand for wind power. In other words, customers of public utilities, including every ratepayer in Benton and Franklin counties, should pay private investors to stop producing electricity when it isn't needed. The Bonneville Power Administration -- which manages and markets the Northwest's electrical system -- has rightly rejected the ridiculous proposal. Unfortunately, we probably haven't heard the last word on the issue. Wind-power advocates appear intent on the public absorbing any risk to the industry's profit margin. It's a good bet that wind farm developers and investors will sue the BPA in an effort to ensure their losses come out of our pockets. Curtailing energy production is necessary on occasion, especially when a big snowpack in the mountains keeps the turbines spinning at the region's dams. BPA issued the alarm months ago -- forecasters were expecting more than enough water to reach the Snake and Columbia river dams this spring. The volume of water headed toward the region's hydroelectric turbines would likely overload BPA's distribution system, they warned. The day was coming -- BPA told anyone willing to listen -- when an excess supply of electricity would force coal, natural gas and wind generation to shut down. That day arrived last week, and for five hours, the BPA ordered every fossil-fuel plant in the Northwest to shut down, along with 10 percent of the region's windmills. BPA gives these producers free hydropower to compensate for power deliveries they give up when production is curtailed. But that does not also replace the tax credits wind farm operators collect on wind-generated electricity. BPA has the right response to that problem -- too bad, wind barons. Tax breaks to encourage wind power are only justified -- if they're justified at all -- when renewable energy 1 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu replaces electricity produced by a dirtier source. If a wind farm can take a coal plant offline, we all end up breathing cleaner air as a result. In theory, society pays a fair price for benefits gained from switching to green power. Plenty of arguments exist against the practice of manipulating tax policy to encourage social objectives, but in this case, they're moot. With so much water in the rivers, BPA's only alternative would have been to curtail hydroelectric production to make room on the transmission system for wind power. Endangered salmon -- the fish ratepayers have spent billions of dollars trying to protect -- would suffer as a result. The alternative to shutting down windmills would be to spill more water over dams rather than divert it through hydroelectric turbines. But, too much water spilled over the top saturates the river with dissolved nitrogen gas, which harms juvenile salmon. The wind industry's stance is to saddle Northwest ratepayers with a choice between putting endangered species at risk or writing a big check. It might not be exactly blackmail, but it's not far from it. Dams: Northern Colorado dam opponents buoyed by still more federal delays By David O. Williams | 05.24.11 | coloradoindependent.com Opponents of proposed dams and reservoirs on the Poudre River along Colorado’s northern Front Range on Monday celebrated more federal permitting delays for the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP), Halligan and Seaman water projects. But U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, a Republican who represents the area in Congress, continues to rally business interests. The U.S. Army Corps on Monday confirmed that a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) for the NISP, originally slated for release last summer, has now been pushed back to next year. “Every delay and corresponding cost escalation is yet another opportunity for NISP communities to invest in alternatives,” Gary Wockner of Save the Poudre: Poudre Waterkeeper said in a release. “We believe that water conservation, cooperating with farmers, and projects that don’t dam or drain the Poudre River would be cheaper, faster, and easier, and would help guarantee water supply security for northern Colorado.” But Gardner, in his home district during a congressional recess last week, met with nearly 300 NISP supporters in Loveland Thursday – many of them local business owners — to continue to push for the controversial project that he says is in the “homestretch.” “My number one goal is to get our economy moving again — to start creating jobs and build lasting economic growth that puts Americans back to work,” Gardner said in his weekly newsletter Sunday. “To do that in Colorado we have to recognize that jobs and economic development across the state are tied to our ability to store and deliver clean, affordable water. If we are going to move toward a stronger economy, the only way to sustain it long term will be with enough water for our future.” Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS) for the Halligan (Fort Collins) and Seaman (Greeley) dams and reservoirs on the North Fork of the Poudre were supposed to be released this summer but now have been pushed to 2012 or 2013, according to the Army Corps. Wockner says that the NISP is now more than six years late and at least $150 million over budget. Alternatives (pdf), he said, would be much cheaper at this point – and far less environmentally destructive. “NISP would drain over half of the water out of the Poudre River through Fort Collins,” Wockner said. “And that is in addition to the 60 percent of water already drained by current diversions. If NISP is built, less than 25 percent of the native flow of the Poudre would still flow through town. NISP would turn the Poudre into a muddy, stinking, polluted ditch.” State hopes to renovate six area dams By Brad Petrishen/Daily News staff, The MetroWest Daily News, May 25, 2011, heraldnews.com 2 Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu Federal and state officials last night Tyler Dam brainstormed over plans to overhaul six regional dams that they say they don't measure up to modern safety standards. Engineers are evaluating the Tyler Dam in Marlborough, Hop Brook and Cold Harbor Brook dams in Northborough, Rawson Hill Brook Dam in Shrewsbury, Delaney Dam in Stow and Ross Dam in Berlin, NH for improvements that would allow them to handle increasing runoff. Built between 1962 and 1987 as part of a larger system to control flooding in the Sudbury-Assabet- Concord rivers watershed, the dams are called "silent protectors" because most are earthen and blend into the landscape" They are owned by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. DCR Acting Chief Engineer Michael Misslin told a small audience of mainly engineers and consultants at the Berlin town offices that the dams are "perfectly safe," but upgrades are critical because of stricter safety requirements, increased development and changing climate patterns. Since 2002, he said, the Northeast has recorded an average of 36 percent more precipitation each year than normal. Magnifying that problem, he said, is that MetroWest is much more developed now than it was when the dams were built. More development means the dams need to hold back more runoff, he said. Rain rolls off houses and pavement, instead of sinking into the ground. All of the dams could handle a "100-year" storm - about 9 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period - with no difficulties, said Joe Bellini, an engineer at Amec Earth & Environmental, Inc. of Westford. However, because of the changing landscape, he said the dams would not be able to withstand the worst-case scenario planned for by dam engineers. Called the "Probable Maximum Precipitation," it's what would happen if an area received 31 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. To handle that load, most of the dams would need to be raised by about 2 feet or undergo other physical reinforcements. Misslin said a similar project is already under way at the George H. Nichols Dam in Westborough, which received $2 million in funding from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Work should be completed in September. Fixing the dams could cost from $1 million to $3 million each, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service - which would pick up two-thirds of the cost - is determining what needs to be done to each and should release preliminary recommendations in a few months. Misslin said upgrades at each dam might not be possible given fiscal constraints, however he hopes that all can be finished within a decade or so. (Doomsday for the Elwha River dams arrives. This is a huge day of celebration by the dam removal proponents. Will the salmon recover? You can bet that there will be more money than we can imagine poured into trying to make that happen.) Dams power down in the largest US dam removal Phuong Le, Associated Press, May 28, 2011, seattlepi.com Port Angeles, WA (AP) — The Elwha River on Washington's Olympic Peninsula once teemed with legendary salmon runs before two towering concrete dams built nearly a century ago cut off fish access to upstream habitat, diminished their runs and altered the ecosystem.