12/06/2013

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Dams:

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) Report - UNEP DAMS AND DEVELOPMENT, A NEW FRAMEWORKTHE REPORT OF THE WORLD COMMISSION ON DAMSFOR DECISION-MAKINGEarthscan Publications Ltd, London and Sterling, VAhttp://www.unep.org/dams/wcd/report.asp

(Geez, is this going on?)Dam flashboards now the subject of federal lawsuitBy Hiroko Sato, lowellsun.com, 11/20/2013

Lowell, MA -- The federal Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to review FERC's earlier decision to allow Enel Green Power North America to replace the existing wooden flashboard system on the Pawtucket Dam with a new, high-tech system. The lawsuit actually comes from the Department of the Interior, under which national historical parks operate, said Peter Aucella, assistant superintendent of the Lowell National Historical Park. The local park is opposed to the

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

Some Dam – Hydro News TM

And Other Stuff

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Quote of Note: “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” - George Bernard Shaw

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 JeffersonRon’s wine pick of the week: 2010 Kendall Jackson Merlot "Grand Reserve"“ No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap. ” - - Thomas Jefferson

high-tech system of flood control Enel wants to install. In this case, the federal justice department is representing the interior department. The National Historical Park believes the high-tech system, known as a pneumatic crestgate, that would be bolted into the bedrock would damage the historic dam. Aucella said the rare decision on part of the DOJ to sue FERC, an entity that is independent of but associated with the federal government, speaks to the importance of preserving the Pawtucket Dam, which is not only located within the city's historic district and the national park's boundary but also is part of the area on the National Register of Historic Places, Aucella said. The DOJ took the case upon the request from the DOI with the support from Rep. Niki Tsongas, a Lowell Democrat, and Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Aucella said.

Chester Dam Project Expected to Benefit Fish on Henry’s ForkReported by: Phil Campbell, kpvi.com, 11/22/2013

In 1938, a diversion dam was built in Fremont County that supplied water to area farmers but blocked the path for fish. In a few months, fish will be able to move past the Chester Dam again and spawn in new spots along the Henry’s Fork. For 75 years, the Fall River Electric Cooperative has been providing power to customers in the Upper Valley, western Wyoming, and southern Montana. They’ve done this by generating power at their four dams and by purchasing electricity, mostly from the Bonneville Power Administration. When the Chester Dam project is completed, it will provide roughly four percent of the co-op’s energy needs.

“I think in the long term it allows Fall River Electric to produce more of our own energy, so that we are not buying that energy from someone else” said Ted Austin of Fall River Electric. “From a sustainability standpoint, it continues to help keep our costs down.” The plan is to raise the level of the dam but they won’t be using, rock, concrete, or even dirt. “This final phase that we are working on now is to install a 38 inch high rubber dam on top of the existing concrete diversion dam,” said Austin. “What that does is it raises the reservoir level, the upstream level, and increases the flow that goes through the turbines.” One of the unique things about this improvement project is that the dam is being built with fish in mind. “With the help of the Henry’s Fork Foundation, Trout Unlimited, and The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, they funded a fish ladder, continued Austin. “And so this is the first time that a fish ladder has been at this facility. This will be the first time that fish will be able to migrate up and down past the Chester Dam. ”The canal which draws its water from the dam will also be outfitted with fish screens to keep the fish out of the canal and in the Henry’s Fork. The rubber dam should be in place by the end of the year with the entire project done in February.

(Never heard about this failure.)Lethal dam breaks date to deadly Christmas Eve in 1924By Luanne Rife | November 24, 2013, roanoke.com

On Christmas Eve 1924, 19 people died when an embankment failed on the Saltville muck dam in Smyth County. No other deaths are attributed to dam failures in Virginia until June 22, 1995, when the Timberlake Dam in Campbell County failed during a punishing storm. Two people died.Since then, two other deaths are attributed to dam failures on the state’s list of “Known Dam Failures in Virginia.” Those lives were taken when a series of dams in the Richmond area was unable to contain the remnants of Hurricane Gaston in 2004. Seven other people were killed by the storm that reportedly dropped 10 to 14 inches of rain across central Virginia, much of it falling within six hours. The storm washed out roads and bridges and destroyed or damaged 5,798 homes, 97 businesses and 2,077 vehicles. The dam failure list accounts for 92 known incidents. Four of the dam failures, including the Saltville disaster, predate Timberlake. Most are directly related to powerful storms. Very few failures are reported on high hazard dams. Of those failures that were not storm related, poor maintenance is often to blame.

(And, in my view most PMP’s are too high. Smethport and Cambridge are point rainfalls and not what you would get over larger drainage basins that affect dams! I bet this starts a heated debate! I’ve heard the PMF defined as the once in “never” flood.)

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu2

Even brief rainfalls can test dams with their intensityBy Luanne Rife | November 24, 2013, roanoke.com

Virginia’s dam safety regulations require high hazard dams to be able to handle 90 percent of the probable maximum flood that could occur should the probable maximum precipitation fall in given intervals of time. An intense, brief rainfall could cause flash flooding, while a less intense but longer storm that hovers over an area could cause runoff and streams within a watershed to swell and eventually overtop or collapse a dam. “Usually there is a range of maps created for a report from as little as six hours [one hour in some cases] up to 72 hours over drainage basins ranging from 10 to up to 10,000 square miles,” said Peter Corrigan, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Blacksburg.

PMP is defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service as “the theoretically greatest depth of precipitation for a given duration that is physically possible over a particular drainage area at certain time of the year,” he said. Or an amount greater than has occurred, but possibly could. The NWS groups most states east of the 105th meridian, including Virginia, in the same mapping region. So what is the largest known amount of rain to fall within that region? On July 4, 1956, 1.23 inches fell in one minute in Unionville, Md. Cambridge, Ohio, recorded 7 inches in a half-hour on July 16, 1914. In Rockport, W.Va., 19 inches fell in two hours and 17 minutes on July 18, 1889. And Smethport, Pa., set three records on July 18, 1942, when it recorded 28.5 inches in three hours, 30.7 inches in four and a half hours and 34.3 inches in 12 hours.

(Everybody has a different view.)Review of dam safety standards aims to reduce financial impactBy Luanne Rife | November 24, 2013, roanoke.com

The Virginia Association of Counties has incorporated into its legislative agenda a measure to support “a review of Dam Safety Standards administered by the Department of Conservation and Recreation to evaluate ways of reducing their financial impacts upon local government and property owners while also protecting public safety.” Mark Ogden with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials said each state does things differently, and that Virginia’s program has much to recommend. The timing to look at the regulations coincides with the pending publication of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Dam Safety Program guidelines. The publication suggests moving away from rigid requirements that rely heavily on designing structures to withstand percentages of probable maximum flood and offers other ways to model capacity through risk-informed analysis. The end result, though, may be the same: costly modifications. The guidelines recommend that when a new dam is designed or an old one is modified, engineers should consider not only development upstream and downstream, but that “reasonably anticipated future development” should be incorporated.It also says, “the indiscriminate application of less stringent, prescriptive hydrologic design criteria for all existing, ‘grandfathered’ dams should be discontinued.”

(A reminder that EAP’s are a good thing!)Exercising Safety: Bear Creek, Cherry Creek and Chatfield dams catch floodwaters while reducing flooding risksU.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha DistrictStory by Eileen Williamson, 11/26/13, dvidshub.net

Heavy rainfall which led to mid-September flooding in Colorado, also fell in the foothills of the Bear Creek basin. The pool elevation at the Bear Creek reservoir rose several feet over the following days reaching a record peak pool elevation of 5607.9 ft.

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu3

Bear Cr. Res.

on Sept. 22. At Bear Creek Lake Park, campground facilities and park infrastructure including trails, parking lots and picnic areas became inundated with floodwaters from Bear Creek and Turkey Creek. Pool levels returned to normal elevations by mid-October.

Denver, Colo. - A stalled front brings record rainfall to the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The runoff brings a surge of water through canyons and foothills and into major population centers of central Colorado.

A Virtual FloodBut, this surge of water happened only in a virtual environment. During the week of Aug. 19, several employees from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District participated in a safety exercise focused on Cherry Creek Dam and Reservoir near Denver, Colo. – or more to the point, in the middle of the Denver metropolitan area. The Omaha District maintains multiple projects within the South Platte River basin. Among them are the Tri-Lakes projects consisting of three dams, Bear Creek, Cherry Creek and Chatfield dams, located on tributaries to the South Platte River, which runs through downtown Denver flowing north and then east through Nebraska. Cherry Creek Dam is on Cherry Creek at its confluence with Cottonwood Creek, at the southeast edge of Denver. It was the first of the Tri-Lakes dams built to lower the risks to the Denver region from catastrophic South Platte River flooding that had plagued the area for more than 100 years. Chatfield Dam was the second dam constructed and is located southwest of Denver on the South Platte River at its confluence with Plum Creek. Bear Creek Dam was the last of the three dams. It is located on the southwest edge of suburban Lakewood at the confluence of Bear Creek and Turkey Creek.

The safety exercise was focused on Cherry Creek Dam because it has a Dam Safety Action Class rating which identifies a high urgency for action due to the potential for risk to a large population in the event of high operational releases or dam failure, even though the possibility of these events occurring is extraordinarily low. More than 200,000 people live within an area that, if Cherry Creek dam did not exist, would be prone to regular flooding. “There are a variety of projects (dams) within the Omaha District’s area of responsibility. Safety ratings aren’t just about cubic yards of concrete or rolled earth used to build a dam, or the hundreds or thousands of acre-feet of water in the reservoirs behind the dams,” said Natural Disaster Program Manager, Ryan Buckley. “When we look at these projects from a safety perspective, it is about improving public safety through reducing flooding risks for the people living near these projects, and with more people living within the vicinity of the dam, the more that risk factor increases.” Working together and against each other, the Tri-Lakes dams reduce flooding risks while the reservoirs and surrounding parks are part of the appeal that brings people to the area.

Exercising SafetyArmy Engineer Regulation ER1110-2-1156 requires the Dam Safety office to conduct annual exercises such as a tabletop exercise, a drill or a functional exercise for significant and high hazard dams to help communicate the risks associated with living in the flood plain and near the dam. “Because the large downstream population increases the risk factor for Cherry Creek, we chose to conduct a more formal exercise focused on Cherry Creek as an interim risk reduction measure,” said Dave Sobczyk, Omaha District Dam Safety Program Manager. The Dam Safety office enlisted the help of the Omaha District Emergency Management office to prepare and conduct the exercise. “We typically host table top exercises but wanted something that would help us communicate the real risks associated with a large population in close proximity to the dam,” said Kim Thomas, Chief of Emergency Management. “We learned from the flooding along the Missouri River in 2011, that people who live near a dam can become complacent with the reduced risks and forget that flooding cannot be eliminated.” The exercise, held in Lakewood, Colo., at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Risk Management Center brought together representatives from The City of Denver, Denver County, Denver Fire Department, Denver Police Department, Arapahoe County, Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department, the City of Greenwood Village, Cherry Creek State Park, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Weather Service, the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with representatives from the Omaha District, the Northwestern Division and several Districts across

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu4

the country. Participants were taken through a high water scenario at Cherry Creek Dam, which was developed through the collaboration of Omaha District personnel representing offices such as Dam Safety, Emergency Management, and Water Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Readiness Support Center located in Mobile, Ala. From discussing who is responsible for communicating what information and activity, to how to notify the public of concerns and managing evacuations, participants drew on a variety of experiences to help move through the exercise. Agencies from the Denver metropolitan area have previously worked together when Denver hosted the Democratic National Convention in 2012, dealing with blizzards and conducting evacuations during recent wild fires.

Tapping the USACE Readiness Support CenterThomas is in the midst of an advanced Emergency Management degree program managed by the Readiness Support Center through George Washington University and developed by Dr. Steven Diaz with the center. Through this class, she learned about the center and the resources available through them for preparing the exercise. The Readiness Support Center is part of the Mobile District; however, it serves the entire Corps. “The RSC enables contingency responders by designing, implementing and continuously improving an educational curriculum responsive to the many requirements brought on by natural and manmade disasters and emergencies,” said Nadia Taylor, Training and Exercise Manager. The RSC provides the contingency responder training, tools and programs designed to credential and field a professional workforce, whether it is in Emergency Management, Risk Management or in a civil or military contingency. The RSC makes every effort to meet the unique needs of each individual customer and request.

“Multimedia development is just one of our specialties,” said Taylor. “We create videos, craft scenarios and simulations, create custom graphics and print products, and provide facilitation for live exercises. We also provide academically-sound expertise and comprehensive development of several distance learning programs for a wide variety of subjects.” The RSC frequently works with other Federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in creating and delivering training and exercises. The RSC has also worked with the private sector through collaborative research and design initiatives. For example, the RSC worked with Microsoft to create simulations for their international offices and internal and external response organizations. Multi-scenario exercises (earthquake, flood, fire, hurricane, pandemic, and terrorist attack) were prepared and facilitated for Microsoft in Mexico, Turkey and at their Seattle offices. The Cherry Creek Dam exercise is the 11th exercise the RSC has supported this year. Previous 2013 exercises included a flood event, hurricane exercises, a terrorist event and dam safety exercises for several U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Divisions and Districts and a tropical cyclone exercise for the U.S. Navy and the Independent State of Samoa. The Corps and the agencies participating with the Omaha District in the Cherry Creek Dam safety exercise, recognize that risks exist and complacency or presuming that dams protect or prevent all flooding can be dangerous to public safety. “Through the course of the exercise, we saw first-responders treating the scenario as a real-world situation and an opportunity to learn,” said Buckley. “The participants wanted to understand how we (the Corps) respond to dam safety issues and their increased awareness of these risks will be beneficial as they ensure the proper plans are in place to help protect public safety.” Unfortunately, some of the first-responder participants saw a real-world scenario unfold less than 30 days later.

Mid-September FloodingThrough the latter half of September and into October, Federal, State and Local officials in Colorado were responding to damages caused by flooding which followed heavy rains that fell Sept. 11 and continued into Sept. 12. The Tri-Lakes projects are located to the south of and upstream from where much of the rain fell. However, a large amount of rain fell in the foothills of the Bear Creek basin. The pool elevation at the Bear Creek reservoir rose several feet over the following days. At 4 a.m., Sept. 15, the reservoir pool elevation surpassed its previous record elevation of 5587.1 feet, which occurred in 1995 and peaked at a pool elevation of 5607.9 ft. on Sept. 22.

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu5

Bear Creek Dam Halts FloodwatersAt Bear Creek Lake Park, campground facilities and park infrastructure including trails, parking lots and picnic areas became inundated with floodwaters from Bear Creek and Turkey Creek. “Bear Creek Dam did what it’s designed to do,” said Fred Rios, Operations Project Manager for the Tri-Lakes Projects talking about the flooding at Bear Creek Lake Park. “Nothing can prevent flooding but the Bear Creek Dam helped reduce that risk to hundreds of homes located downstream,” he added. As the floodwaters receded from Bear Creek Lake, park patrons and volunteers who came to help clean up debris were able to see how the dam worked to reduce those risks. “Hopefully, it also serves as a reminder to the public to have a plan,” said Rios. “I pay attention to Winter Storm Warnings and Severe Storm conditions to protect my family. We need people to keep that in mind when living near a dam.” When living on a reservoir or downstream from a dam, residents should have a plan for potentially high pool elevations or high water releases.

(It never rains where or when you want it! This when owning a concrete dam gives you peace of mind! Dirt may be cheap but sometimes concrete is better!)If Rains Refill Reservoirs, Can Texas’ Dams Hold Up?November 26, 2013 | By Michael Marks, stateimpact.npr.org

Recent rain and snow haven’t been enough to replenish Texas’ water supply. Years of drought have taken their toll on the state’s reservoirs, some of which remain nearly empty. Eventually, the reservoirs should fill back up. (Hopefully.) But it’s unclear if Texas’ infrastructure will be able to hold back the waters once that happens. Experts say that Texas’ dams have incurred severe damage because of the drought and subsequent rains. Dry conditions can cause cracks to form in the dams, which undermines their structural integrity. This is especially true of earthen dams that are made out of soil and other natural materials, according to Warren Samuelson, head of the Dam Safety Program at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. “[The drought] causes the dams to move, sort of,” says Samuelson. “Cracks are created because it’s dry, and so you have the shrinking and swelling of the soil because they’re earthen structures.”

Chart by U.S. Army Corps of EngineersTexas' dams by primary type.

Nearly 97 percent of the dams in Texas are earthen dams, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams. Drought can also crack concrete dams by shifting the soil.

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu6

As the ground around the dam moves, Samuelson says that cracks will “develop through the bottom, up from the concrete.” And those problems can be exacerbated by rain. Rain causes two main issues for cracked dams: it increases the size of the cracks, and it increases the amount of water that the dam must hold back. “You get a rainfall event, all the water goes down in the crack. And then you have a more fluid situation in the dam, which can result in slides, and possibly even failure of the dam,” Samuelson says. Samuelson says he has found cracks that are as large as five inches across by four feet deep. But according to him, that’s not something people think about when they’re building a house or a business. “People that build downstream of dams don’t understand that there is a dam up there that could at some point could fail possibly. They don’t see any issues at all because there’s no water behind it, therefore there’s no problem,” Samuelson says. If precipitation refills more of Texas’ reservoirs, those issues could soon become apparent downstream of dams across the state.

Hydro: FERC, California sign MoU to coordinate on hydropower proposalsEBR Staff Writer, 21 November 2013, hydro.energy-business-review.com

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to coordinate the review of pre-application activities for hydropower proposals in the state. The MoU will facilitate a more efficient and coordinated process for license applications and water quality certifications that include consultation, environmental scoping, study planning and commenting on an applicant's preliminary licensing proposal. As per the MoU, the parties have also agreed to set deadlines to ensure a timely process and actively participate in study plan development.Additionally, SWRCB will participate in FERC's environmental scoping process and identify studies and information necessary for water quality certification. The MoU will also focus on conventional hydropower projects including pumped storage projects, and will not pertain to offshore hydrokinetic projects. FERC office of energy projects director Jeff Wright said the MoU will offer for a more coordinated process that will help FERC, the California Water Board and stakeholders associated with hydropower development in California. "Thank you to FERC staff and the staff at the State Water Board who worked diligently to make this MoU a reality," added Wright.

(Maybe, this should be titled “The Inevitable”. Do you think the City wants this problem?)PacifiCorp looking to divest or retire its hydroelectric plant in Bend, Ore.The Associated Press, November 25, 2013, therepublic.com

Bend, Oregon — PacifiCorp is looking to retire its hydropower plant at Mirror Pond dam in Bend, Oregon, and transfer ownership to another entity. The utility said in a statement Monday that it isn't cost-effective to make extensive repairs to the 100-year-old dam. A leak in early October prompted a more thorough engineering inspection. PacifiCorp's Mark Tallman says the dam is safe but "it's time to divest or retire our Bend hydroelectric plant." The company says it wants to talk to the city of Bend and the Bend Parks and Recreation District to see whether the dam could be placed under local control in a way that also serve the best interest of rate-paying utility customers. The dam diverts water for the hydroelectric plant and creates Mirror Pond on a section of the Deschutes River in downtown Bend.

(Excerpts! The Tribe now gets a large annual payment because the half the lands of the project are on its reservation so paying for the dam may be a bad investment.)Montana tribes will be the first to own a hydroelectric dam

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu7

The three tribes of the Flathead Reservation may see significant economic and cultural benefits.Nov 25, 2013, by Sarah Jane Keller, hcn.org

Most of the people who run Kerr Dam on northwest Montana's Flathead Reservation sit hundreds of miles away, and some are even across the country, in the offices of Pennsylvania Power and Light. But that's likely to change in 2015, when the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have the option to buy the dam, thereby becoming the country's first tribal hydroelectric owners and operators. Rocky Mountain Power Company built the 205-foot-tall impoundment on the Flathead River, four miles downstream of Flathead Lake, against the will of many tribal members in 1938. Gaining control of Kerr Dam will have significant economic and cultural benefits for the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreille – the three tribes of the Flathead Reservation. It's also given tribal member Daniel Howlett the chance to come home. When he left the Flathead Valley to study business and renewable energy management in Denver, he never expected to have a career on the reservation. Now, he's a power-marketing coordinator for his tribe's new energy company, which plans to offer 1.1 million megawatt hours of electricity from the dam annually, enough to power roughly 79,000 homes each year.

The Confederated Tribes already run the reservation's utility company, have a top-notch natural resources department, and oversee the first tribally administered wilderness in the United States. Obtaining the dam will be another major step in self-determination, probably with impacts far beyond Montana. Other tribes, such as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon and the Seneca Nation in New York, are vying for full or majority ownership of hydroelectric dams on their land. They are keeping track of the Kerr Dam purchase, which will shape outside perceptions of tribal energy development. "I think a lot of eyes across the nation, and certainly Indian Country, will appreciate the milestone significance of this achievement," says Pat Smith, a former attorney for the Salish and Kootenai. ----------

(I think the shed in my back yard is about the same size! Exempting projects like this makes sense,)Long-delayed hydro plant gets go-aheadSilverton project first of kind in stateBy Dale Rodebaugh Herald staff writer, November 25, 2013, durangoherald.com

A federal agency has exempted a small hydroelectric project proposed by the San Juan County Historical Society from a tedious and expensive permitting process. The action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allows the Silverton-based society to install an 8-kilowatt plant near the historic Mayflower Mill that overlooks the Animas River about a mile northeast of downtown Silverton. “I just received the official letter today,” Bev Rich, San Juan County treasurer and chairwoman of the historical society, said Monday. “We were the poster child for the authorizing legislation as it went through Congress. “Now we can crank up after being delayed,

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu8

delayed and delayed with this FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) thing,” Rich said. “We hope to get the last wiring done before the end of the year to qualify for a $2,000 rebate.” The turbine and its housing were installed this summer in anticipation of getting the federal go-ahead, Rich said. Federal hydro project permitting regulations delayed the society’s plans until August, when Congress approved the Hydropower Regulator Efficiency Act to streamline the process for projects of less than 5 megawatts (about 625 times bigger than the Silverton plant). The Colorado Small Hydro Association was the driver behind the change in policy, Rich said. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., co-sponsored the legislation in the Senate. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, co-sponsored the legislation in the House. Power from the plant will provide electricity for the mill, which today is open for self-guided tours on a limited basis. A new one-mile pipeline from upper Arrastra Creek will provide water to power the mill.

The Mayflower Mill, which produced 1.9 million ounces of gold, 30 million ounces of silver and 1 million tons of combined base metals, was the single longest-operating ore mill in the San Juan Mountains. It is a National Historic Landmark. The ore mill, which operated from 1930 to 1991 (with 12 years of down time), was donated to the historical society by Sunnyside Gold Corp. in 1998 as partial payment in a $20 million cleanup of several mines closed years earlier. Electricity to keep the mill open for tourists cost the historical society $600 a month. It was an expensive venture because the mill was available to the public only three days a week, four months a year. Rich said in August 2010 that it made sense to generate power 12 months a year and sell the surplus to San Miguel Power Co. The mill has two water rights on Arrastra Creek totaling a little more than 1 cubic foot a second. “The hydropower industry has tremendous potential to stimulate economic growth and job creation,” Bennet said in a statement. “This commonsense bill removes unnecessary regulations to help small projects get up and running. We should continue to look for ways to cut through red tape and promote these types of clean, cost-effective energy sources.” The Silverton hydroplant is the first in Colorado and one of the first in the country to win permitting under the new regulations. The Colorado State Historical Fund put up $75,000 for the project, Rich said. The Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority contributed $25,000 and the U.S. Department of Agriculture $10,000.

(It would be nice to see hydro at this site since the lab did so many studies on hydro development.)Info meeting on St. Anthony Falls hydro proposal Posted by: Bill McAuliffe Updated: November 26, 2013 - startribune.com

A long delayed, controversial plan to build an underground hydroelectric power plant near the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis will go before the public again Tuesday, with a significant change. Several previous proposals have not gotten past the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, which has owned the land near the bridge where Crown Hydro LLC wants to install water intakes, below-ground turbines and tunnels to carry water away. But the latest proposal would move the project 150 feet east, toward the Mississippi River itself, onto U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land. That doesn’t mean it’s ready to be built, though. The Army Corps has indicated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is the approving agency, that it has a range of concerns about the potential impact of the project on the lock and dam itself, and on boaters.

Copy obtained from the National Performance of Dams Program: http://npdp.stanford.edu9

Nan Bischoff, FERC’s coordinator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Paul District, noted that the power plant would have to shut down whenever the lock — which is sometimes filled or drained for a single canoe passing up or downstream — is letting a boat through. That would have to be part of any agreement approving the power plant, she said. The Park Board continues to hold a lever, said Commissioner Liz Wielinski, in the form of a permanent easement through the land above where the project’s outlet pipes would be located. Crown Hydro submitted a preliminary application for a federal license in 1991 and received it in 1999. The FERC has told the company that its new proposal is so significantly different that it requires extensive overhaul. The company’s informational meeting Tuesday is part of that process. It's scheduled for 3:30 p.m. in Pohlad Hall at the Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall. Since Crown Hydro’s first proposal, the riverfront area along downtown has been transformed from hung-over industrial land to a spectacular urban showcase of housing and entertainment as well as historic and recreational amenities. In the past, critics of the Crown Hydro proposal have said it could jeopardize the central riverfront area and that taking more water from the river could dry up the falls during hot summers. Another hydroelectric generator was built in recent years just downstream at the Lower St. Anthony Lock and Dam. Wielinski noted that it does not use tunnels. There are currently about 30 hydropower generators on rivers in Minnesota, operated by utilities, cities, counties and private companies such as paper mills.

(A dumb question is answered!)Can You Turn Your Home Into A Hydroelectric Power Plant?11/27/2013, forbes.com, By New Scientist, an Energy Realities Partner

Nobody has all the answers to the world’s energy questions, so New Scientist has teamed up with Statoil to search for solutions from New Scientist’s audience. The question posed is: How much electricity could be generated if you attached a turbine to the pressurized water supply coming into your home? Would this affect the water supplier or your neighbors? At a time when we need more low-carbon sources of electricity, home hydropower seems like a great idea.And it turns out that generating power from our water pipes is already a reality, though not as envisaged in the question. Andrew Lohbihler, founder and CTO of Toronto-based XYZ Interactive, points out on LinkedIn that some water meters already include a small turbine in their design to generate electricity for powering a radio, which sends household consumption data to a relay station. These use only a small fraction of the flow’s kinetic energy, so that water still reaches the highest parts of the homes they serve. Turbines can also be used in large water pipes. Michael Pohlod, a risk and regulatory analyst at TransCanada, points to their use in pipes with diameters larger than 60 centimeters. His evidence comes from a company called Lucid Energy of Portland, Oregon, which installs vertical-axis turbines inside pipes and electricity generators on top of them. By removing excess pressure in gravity-fed systems, the company reckons it can generate 100 kilowatts or more without disrupting flows. Delightfully, this system can also work on effluent flows–a new form of energy from waste.

Hydropower may work on big pipes, but will it work at the scale of home plumbing? Even if the answer is yes, Steve Orchard in Gloucestershire points out that there is a legal obstacle to be overcome, at least in the UK. That’s because leaving on the tap to generate power would contravene parts of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 that are designed to avoid the waste of water. But is the answer yes? Many people did experiments and complicated math to test the idea. Water flow rates varied greatly but the conclusion did not. There was complete consensus on the value of this scheme, as demonstrated by this month’s winning entries:

1. I did a simple experiment at home to sort this out by timing how long it took to fill a bucket of known volume with water with the tap fully open. I found that my outside tap, fed directly from the rising main coming in from the street, would deliver 30 liters per minute, or 0.5 liters per second. That’s the flow from one tap, but in practice the rising main can supply several taps at once, each running at full bore. I could run three taps at once before the flow rate diminished. So it looks like my rising main has a rough capacity of 1.5 liters per second. That’s a mass flow rate of 1.5

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kilograms per second. I know that the diameter of the main is about 13 millimeters – a standard pipe size here in the UK – so I can calculate that the water is travelling at 11 meters per second (that’s the volume flow rate divided by the pipe’s cross-sectional area). Now, the water is running freely to waste, so all its energy is being converted to kinetic energy, just as it would be in a turbine. Kinetic energy is ½mv 2, where m is 1.5 kg/s, and v is 11 m/s. Crunching the numbers gives an energy of about 90 joules per second – or 90 watts, if you could harvest it at 100 per cent efficiency. But you can’t make a turbine this good. The best practical turbine has an efficiency of about 66 per cent so realistically you’d get about 60 watts at the shaft of a turbine in your mains pipe. But, again, small electrical machines are notoriously inefficient, so you’d be lucky to get half that out as electricity. I could expect to harvest about 30 watts of electricity from the turbine, as long as I was content to draw no water from it for any other purpose.Doing this would be a seriously antisocial thing to do, though. The water that comes into my house flows from a service reservoir on top of a nearby hill. It doesn’t get there by itself, and my water company has to expend energy pumping it up the hill. The water is also, of course, expensively treated to make it fit to drink, and so pouring it down the drain at the rate of 1.5 liters per second – that’s 130 tonnes of water per day – to generate a trivial amount of power would be an appalling waste. I’ve just checked what my local water company would charge for that much water (about 47,500 tonnes per year) on a metered supply. It’s about £57,600. That’s a ludicrously expensive way to generate 30 watts of electricity.Don’t try this one at home, folks!Richard Ellam

2. The water supplier would certainly take a dim view of this activity, regarding it as a misuse of their water, but its effect on the overall supply would be negligible. Neither would your neighbor notice any difference, unless you share a very long, small-bore supply pipe. The reason for the disappointing amount of electricity generated is not the low pressure – many “run of river” generating plants operate on similar heads (the height of the storage reservoir above the turbine). The problem is the very low flow rate. In contrast, a relatively small 10-megawatt hydroelectric generator would have a throughput of about 60 cubic meters per second. That’s a lot of bucketfuls.Alan Brookman,Sabden, Lancashire, UK

3. If the electricity generated this way is regarded as “free” energy, and if you are lucky enough not to have your water metered, there would be a great temptation to allow more water to run through your turbine. This would affect your neighbors if it helped to bring on hosepipe bans earlier during droughts, and because water suppliers would need to provide more water and their costs would be passed on to consumers.Penny JohnsonWotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, UK

New Scientist magazine was launched in 1956 “for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery, and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences”. The brand’s mission is no different today – for its consumers, New Scientist reports advances in science and technology and explores their consequences and implications for society.

Environment: With One Dam Gone, Life Returns to Elwha River

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By Bellamy Pailthorp, 11/27/13, kplu.org

It’s been called the most significant environmental story of this century: the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Elwha River, near Port Angeles. The project is only partly done; Elwha Dam, one of two structures holding back salmon and steelhead runs, has been fully removed, and the other, Glines Canyon Dam, will be out next fall. But the landscape is already changing dramatically.

The Return of SalmonThe Elwha River runs through Olympic National Park, which will soon provide 70 miles of nearly pristine spawning habitat for fish, if they can get there. For more than a century, their passageway was blocked to provide hydroelectric power. Now the wall of turbines is gone, and the fish appear to be coming back. “That’s a fairly tough passageway right there. Takes some energetic salmon, with just the right flows for the salmon, to come through there,” said Robert Elofson as he looked down 100-foot rock walls into the canyon where water full of silty sediment rushed through.Elofson, director of river restoration for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, says he’s been all smiles lately, because there is almost no trace left of the structure that decimated the tribe when it went up more than a hundred years ago. This dam was built in violation of the law, without any salmon ladders. The fish never stopped trying to come up to their native spawning ground. They used to bump their heads on the wall. Some found their way around it in side channels. But now that the Elwha Dam is gone, they’re free to swim upriver. “The chum, pinks, Coho and Chinook have all made it past this site,” said Elofson. This year, the tribe reported its largest run of Chinook in decades. It’s unclear, though, whether this grand experiment in dam removal will work. All the fish scientists will say they know for sure is that there are many more spawning nests this year than last—about three times as many. But the ecosystem appears to be bouncing back, and there’s no doubt that the landscape is changing.

Bathtub Rings Where a Reservoir Once StoodYou can see where the old river channels used to go," said Patte Happe, lead wildlife biologist at Olympic National Park, as she walked through a soft plateau that was once the bottom of Lake Mills. The reservoir was slowly drawn down in preparation for the dam removal. Now, Happe says, you can see where the water once filled it by looking at the hillsides: if you squint, it almost looks like there are bathtub rings about 20 feet above.“You can kind of see. There’s the old waterline,” she said. Now there are plants sprouting on gravel bars, many of them planted by re-vegetation crews to give nature a boost. And, Happe says, there are other signs of nature returning. For one, her team has collared two elk they’re tracking. One has been hanging around the former lakebed. “Last year, he discovered the reservoir and the portions that were re-vegetated, and he spent a lot of the winter there,” Happe said. “Somebody has to discover it. He discovered it, he used it. So it will be interesting to see who else does that, that we can tell.” Happe says wildlife officials are still figuring out how to monitor everything in a cost-effective manner. Right now, there are at least 3,000 elk in the park. They believe if they restore the ecosystem, a variety of other wildlife will come back, from salmon on up the food chain to bears and beavers, even eagles and otters. “But they need something to eat, and they need shelter. So we’re waiting for that to come back,” Happe said.

Beach, Once Rapidly-Eroding, Now GrowingDownstream at the river’s mouth, the beach is coming back—literally growing, says Ian Miller, a near-shore scientist who studies the sediment and what lives in and around it. “This represents

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about 10 to 15 feet of new deposition. So there’s 10, 15 feet all deposited in the past year,” said Miller with Washington Sea Grant. “It’s very nice.” Miller’s team is studying how dam removal will influence what used to be a very rapidly-eroding beach. The team is also tracking everything that arrives on the beach and how it moves around. “In terms of survey work, the hazards have changed from risking rolling an ankle on a slippery cobble to getting caught in quick sand,” Miller said. Miller says what was once a very simple, stripped-down ecosystem is transforming into an increasingly complex one with huge amounts of woody debris and tiny pieces of driftwood that had been held back by the dam. “This was one of the sort of early surprises: seeing this, expecting sediment. Really seeing big piles of mulch, essentially, very fine wood,” he said.Found: Dungeness Crab Miller also works with a group of researchers who study how dam removal affects the marine biological community that lives offshore. And one of his interns, a young man named Karsten Turrey, found the first Dungeness crab on the beach in nearly a century. A member of the Lower-Elwha Klallum Tribe, 17-year-old Turrey volunteered to help with Miller’s October survey of the new arrivals on the beach. “Well, we just saw [the crab],” said Turrey. “Scooped it up and it was there.” The researchers say it will be years before they say anything conclusive about what’s happening on this beach. And t will continue to evolve as the second dam, the Glines Canyon Dam, 13 miles upstream of the river’s mouth comes down less than a year from now.

Other Stuff: (These data from the 2012 Renewable Energy Data Book - see attached.Look how low the wind plant factor is compared to hydro !)U.S. Electricity Generation (2012): U.S. Renewable Generation: 504 TWh9.2% Nuclear14.0% Renewable Energy29.8% Coal41.7% Natural Gas0.4% Other 5.0% Petroleum1.2% Biomass 0.3% Geothermal 0.7% Solar* 5.1% Wind6.7% HydropowerHydro Plant factor = 40.4 %Wind Plant Factor = 26.5 %U.S. Electric Net Generation (2012): 4,068 TWh

U.S. Renewable Electricity Capacity: 164 GW37.3% Coal18.9% Nuclear12.4% Renewable Energy 0.6% Other30.3% Natural Gas0.6% Petroleum1.4% Biomass 0.4% Geothermal 0.3% Solar* 3.4% Wind6.8% HydropowerU.S. Electric Nameplate Capacity (2012): 1,168 GW

Use of coal-fired generators declining in U.S. Southeast By Bob Downing, November 22, 2013, ohio.com

From the U.S. Energy Information Administration today:

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Nov 22, 2013Use of coal-fired generators in the Southeast has been declining

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity Monthly UpdateNote: Other refers to electricity generated from the non-biogenic portion of municipal solid waste, other non-renewable waste fuels, hydroelectric pumped storage, other energy storage, and other sources.The region with the largest shift between coal and natural gas in terms of both the overall generation levels and the relative fuel mix has been in the Southeast. Lower natural gas prices, a concentration of highly efficient natural gas-fired generators, and the high cost of shipping coal from production regions have all contributed to this shift.

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