Vanceboro Dam Storage Project relicensed

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a new license to Woodland Pulp LLC to continue operating and maintaining the Vanceboro Dam Storage Project.  Located on the East Branch of the St. Croix River along the Canadian border in Washington County, Maine, the FERC-licensed project operates as a water storage facility that provides flood storage and flow releases for downstream hydroelectric generation.

The 469-foot-long, 16-foot-high Vanceboro Dam and 178,000 acre-foot project impoundment span the U.S.-Canada border.  The project is subject to the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 which established the International Joint Commission (IJC), a bi-national agency with the mission of preventing and resolving disputes between the United States and Canada over boundary waters.

The Vanceboro project is part of the larger St. Croix River headwater storage system.  This system also includes the Forest City Project, located about 24 miles upstream on the East Branch of the St. Croix, as well as the West Branch Project.  Water flows into the Vanceboro project’s impoundment from the Forest City Project. The project operates in a store-and-release mode whereby water is stored during periods of high flow to reduce downstream flooding, and then released during periods of lower flow to increase generation at the downstream hydroelectric projects.   Generation associated with these projects occurs at the unlicensed Grand Falls and Woodland hydroelectric projects located downstream on the St. Croix River.  Collectively, these storage projects provide flood storage and helps to regulate and augment flows, resulting in increased generation at Woodland Pulp’s downstream hydroelectric projects.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an original license for the United States portion of the Vanceboro project on April 4, 1966.  The project is docketed as No. 2492.  That original license expired February 29, 2016, so two years earlier the licensee filed an application to the Commission for a new license to continue operating and maintaining the project.  In the interim, Woodland Pulp operated the project under an annual license pending resolution of its FERC relicensing process. 

On March 22, 2016, the FERC released an order issuing a new license for the Vanceboro Project. The new license authorizes no new capacity, and requires what the Commission characterized as "a moderate amount of new environmental mitigation measures."  These include a mandatory prescription issued under section 18 of the Federal Power Act, relating to new upstream fish passage facilities for American eel, river herring, and landlocked Atlantic salmon.

Given the fact that the Vanceboro Project is operated in coordination with the recently-relicensed West Branch Project No. 2618 and Forest City Project No. 2660 which each received 30-year license terms within the past 5 months, the Commission similarly relicensed the Vanceboro project for a 30-year license term to allow coordination of all three projects during any future relicensing.

Based on the large number of FERC-licensed hydropower projects whose licenses will expire in the near future, regulators expect to see an uptick in relicensing activity for hydroelectric projects and dams.

Fish passage for hydrokinetic projects?

Fishways are often found at dams to allow fish to pass upstream or downstream - but what does fish passage mean for dam-less hydrokinetic projects?

Hydrokinetic energy projects are an innovative way to produce electricity from moving water without building dams.  Companies are developing a variety of technologies, many of which use water flowing in a river, ocean or tidal current to spin turbine-generator sets.  Most grid-connected hydrokinetic projects are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under its authority over hydropower.  This authority comes largely from the Federal Power Act, which requires the Commission to include certain terms in the hydropower project licenses it issues and gives it discretion to impose other conditions.  For example, Section 18 of the Federal Power Act provides that the Commission shall require the construction, maintenance, and operation by a licensee of such fishways as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Commerce.

Hydrokinetic technologies are still fairly new, so only a handful of projects have received FERC licenses so far.  Given that hydrokinetic projects do not include the construction of a new dam, one might not expect fish passage to be an issue, particularly at tidal or ocean sites.  Indeed, it appears that for at least some hydrokinetic projects, fish passage may not be an issue.  For example, when FERC issued a pilot project license to Verdant Power, LLC for its Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project in New York City's East River, the Commission did not include a reservation of the right to require a fishway in the license.

The Commission did include such a fishway reservation in the pilot license it granted to Ocean Renewable Power Company's Cobscook Bay Tidal project in Maine waters.  In that case, the Secretary of the Interior cited important and highly valued populations of resident and migratory fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon.  Although the Secretary did not prescribe a fishway at the time, Interior requested that the Commission reserve its authority to prescribe fishways under Section 18.  When FERC granted ORPC's license, it included an article reserving the authority to require the licensee to construct, operate, and maintain, or to provide for the construction, operation, and maintenance of such fishways as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior.

Although the project licensee later requested an exemption from this article because its project is not a dam and will not create any impoundment, the Commission declined to amend the license.  Explaining its reasoning, the Commission pointed to the policy it developed from its traditional hydropower licensing: if the Secretary of the Interior or Commerce so requests, the Commission will include an article reserving the Commission’s authority to require the construction and operation of fishways to preserve the requesting Secretary's future right to to prescribe fishways under Section 18.

What a possible fishway system for a tidal hydrokinetic project remains to be seen, as does whether FERC will impose such a requirement on any operating projects.  If the Secretary of the Interior or Commerce prescribes a fishway, FERC can assert its jurisdiction under Section 18 to require fishway installation.  Factors that could lead to such a decision may include the particular fish species and resources at each project's site, and a project's actual impacts on those fish.

Adding hydro to Army Corps dams

As an energy resource, hydroelectricity has great potential, but siting and environmental concerns make building a new dam in the U.S. difficult.  A new trend of adding renewable electric generation to existing non-hydroelectric dams may help the U.S. grow its hydropower production without building new dams.

Last month the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a license for a new hydroelectric project in Vermont, the Townshend Dam Hydroelectric Project No. 13368.  The project, first proposed in 2010 by Blue Heron Hydro, LLC, involves the installation of hydroelectric turbine-generator arrays at the existing Townshend Dam on the West River near the town of Townshend, VT.  The Townshend Dam project is particularly interesting in that it represents a new model: upgrading existing dams without hydroelectric generation to be able to produce renewable electricity.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns and maintains the rock-and-earth-fill Townshend Dam, a structure 133 feet high and 1,700 feet long.  The Townshend Dam is part of a system of 14 dams that are operated to provide flood protection for the numerous communities along the Connecticut River.  In addition to flood control, the Corps operates Townshend Dam and Lake for fish and wildlife enhancement and recreation.

Blue Heron Hydro proposes to install twelve turbines and 77-kW submersible generators at the dam site, for a total of 924 kW.  As proposed, the turbines would not change the dam's current run-of-river operation but would rather divert water that currently spills over the dam to flow through the turbines, producing power.  A seasonal downstream fish passage facility would also be installed, primarily for Atlantic salmon.

FERC has now issued an original license for the project.  The license contains a variety of conditions and requirements, but grants Blue Heron Hydro the right to construct, operate, and maintain the project.

The Army Corps manages a portfolio of 693 dams, many of which do not currently have hydroelectric or hydrokinetic generation facilities installed.  Developers are exploring the opportunity to produce hydropower at many of these Army Corps sites, as well as at the thousands of other unpowered but existing dams across the country.  Will the near future bring more interest in adding hydroelectric generation to existing Army Corps dams?

Klamath basin dam removal

The US Department of the Interior recently released a draft report analyzing the economic and environmental impacts of removing four dams in the Klamath River Basin.  The report frames a public debate over water rights, natural resource management, and dam removal.

Long home to prodigious salmon runs and a vibrant ecosystem, several of the rivers in the Klamath system were dammed in the 1900s.  Today, four of these dams - J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2, and Iron Gate - are owned by utility PacifiCorp. Over time, fish numbers in the Klamath River declined precipitously; according to the report, numbers of many species like salmon are reduced over 90% from historical levels.  In 2006, after a 50-year term, the FERC license for the four dams expired.

Activism by environmental groups and others frustrated PacifiCorp's plans to relicense the dams, and ultimately led stakeholders to sign two key agreements governing the basin: the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA) and the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement in 2010.  Under the terms of those agreements, the four named dams would be removed.

The Draft Klamath Dam Removal Overview Report for the Secretary of the Interior (333 page PDF) bills itself as an assessment of scientific and technical information about the proposal.   The report found that dam removal would cost between $238 million and $493 million, with $292 million as the most likely cost.  Notably, these estimates are well below the amount previously projected for dam removal.  Dam removal would release sediment that could kill salmon in the short term, but the agency found that dam removal would create more habitat and could increase adult chinook salmon production by about 83 percent.

If the dams are to be removed, Congress will have to authorize their removal.  Together, the dams can produce up to 163 megawatts of power, and produce about 716,800 megawatt-hours per year.  While this is relatively small compared to national demand for electricity, existing hydroelectric generation is relatively low-cost compared to alternative sources of power.  Existing hydro also is generally viewed as emissions-free and relatively benign from an environmental perspective, especially compared to fossil fuel resources like coal and oil.  Nevertheless, the draft report suggests that the benefits of removal will exceed retaining the dams in place by a factor of between 9 and 48.

Will this be enough to justify their removal?

February 28, 2011 - dam removal costs and values

Dam removal can bring environmental benefits, but comes with costs.  These costs can include not only the expense of physically breaching the dam and removing its remains, but also costs associated with sampling and remediating contaminated sediments trapped behind the dam.  Here's a quick look at two case studies, providing updates on stories I've noted before.

Last November, I looked at what's trapped behind dams on South Carolina's Twelve Mile Creek near Clemson.  Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemical contaminants from electronics manufacturing operations have become trapped in sediments behind several dams slated for removal.  Removal of the dams is expected to allow cleaner sediments to flow down into Lake Hartwell where they are hoped to be able to cap the PCB-contaminated lake bottom.  Work on a sediment storage area is now ongoing along Twelve Mile Creek, funded through the $9 million settlement in the enforcement lawsuit against the manufacturer.

Just over a year ago, I noted that a settlement agreement would lead to the removal of four hydro-electric dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon.  There, utility PacifiCorp has agreed to undertake the dam removal, which is projected to commence in 2020.  Overall, the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement contemplate a dam removal cost of $450 million, with another $1 billion in environmental restoration activities.  How will dam removal be paid for?  At least part of the funds (albeit a relatively small share) will likely come from PacifiCorp's ratepayers.  A California administrative law judge has recommended that the California Public Utilities Commission approve a nine-year 2 percent rate increase to raise $13.8 million for dam removal.   Where the rest of the money will come from, as well as whether U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decides to support dam removal, remains to be seen.

August 27, 2010 - restoring old dams? sunken treasure

Storm over the Kennebec River near Dresden

Earlier this month, I wrote about the situation at Scribner's Mill on the Crooked River in Maine.  The Scribner's Mill Preservation Project is doing a great job of restoring the old sawmill located on the banks of the river.  Formerly, the sawmill was paired with a nine-foot dam that was breached in 1972; prior to dam breach, the impounded water fell through water wheels to power the mill directly.  The mill preservationists are again proposing to build a dam on the site to allow the mill to regain its status as a working water mill.  Two years ago, they proposed putting up a 4' dam; the Maine Department of Environmental Protection rejected their efforts.  Now they're proposing a 3' dam.

Arguments against rebuilding the dam include ones based on the importance of the Crooked River to the entire Sebago Lake ecosystem.  The Crooked River is the principal spawning habitat for the famous wild landlocked salmon in the lake.  Landlocks are the same species as Atlantic salmon, but spend their entire lives in fresh water.  Maine has a special fishery for wild landlocked salmon, and Sebago Lake is one of its most accessible waterbodies.  In addition to fisheries concerns, the Crooked River is also the principal surface inflow of water into the lake, which is the drinking source for about 200,000 people in Maine.

Last night, Maine Public Broadcasting Network ran a good story on the debate.

In other renewable news: following on the recent ORPC tidal energy turbine installation at a Coast Guard facility in Eastport, today the Coast Guard is raising a wind turbine at a Southwest Harbor facility.


Who doesn't love a tale of a forgotten shipwreck holding a sunken treasure?  During a blizzard in February 1944, the British freighter Empire Knight foundered on a covered reef near Boon Island off York, Maine.  The ship broke up and sank.  In 1990, the Coast Guard learned that the ship contained over 17,000 pounds of mercury.  Divers recovered a small portion of the mercury and contaminated material, but found that 16,000 pounds had escaped and was loose in a cargo hold.  The Coast Guard closed the site.  Now, a treasure hunter wants to recover the mercury in an environmentally responsible manner -- and also what he believes may be copper-platinum wire worth $200 million (a bit more valuable than the copper wire commonly stolen!), plus a "secret cargo" that could be worth from $10 million on up.

July 19, 2010 - life on a Maine island

I've just returned from a visit to one of Maine's offshore islands. Life on a small island can seem fundamentally different: the pace of life is driven by the tides and boat schedules, and fog can often replace the mainland's heat. It was a good place to think about energy policy, and history, and where we can go from here.

More updates to follow regularly.

Brief news recap:

Friends of Merrymeeting Bay (FOMB) have provided 60-day notice of intent to sue the owners of four Maine dams under the Clean Water Act over issues relating to Atlantic salmon. FOMB have a history of legal activism over fish (including eel) passage at dams in Maine, particularly in the Merrymeeting Bay watershed. If you've read my earlier posts about kayaking in Merrymeeting Bay, you might know that Merrymeeting Bay is where the Androscoggin River flows into the Kennebec. FOMB has identified four dams in its threat: the Lockwood Dam in Waterville, "Hydro Kennebec" in Winslow, Shawmut Dam in Fairfield and Weston Dam in Skowhegan.