Oregon Dams Join Green Power Ranks

[jpak]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070330005554&newsLang=en

MADRAS, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The largest hydroelectric project totally inside Oregon’s borders is now officially generating green power, with a designation achieved by only 26 hydro plants in the United States.

On Wednesday, the Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI) Board certified the Pelton Round Butte project as low impact, based on an array of planned environmental protection measures, including a new fish passage system that will be under construction this fall. With 465 million watts capacity, and one of its dams rising 440 feet, Pelton Round Butte is the second largest hydro project in the United States to receive the designation. Only one other Oregon facility has LIHI certification: the 4.3-million watt Falls Creek Dam, northeast of Eugene.

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As designed, 96 percent of downstream migrating fish that arrive at the passage facility will safely transit into the lower Deschutes. Species to be reintroduced above the dams include summer steelhead (a federally listed threatened species) and spring Chinook salmon. Resident kokanee should naturally convert to sockeye salmon as they head downstream.

The new system will reopen 226 miles of streams above the dams to fish migration while allowing continued production of low-cost, renewable hydroelectric power. Pelton Round Butte generates enough electricity to supply a city about the size of Oregon’s capital, Salem, with a population of 143,000.

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[sandnsea]

1. Green Generation

Investing in converting dams would create jobs, restore rivers, increase fish populations and create clean energy. We should be doing more of this and less mountain top removal.