Thank you for posting it, I will be there.

I hate to seem the apologist for hydropower, but I don't see society, including fishermen, scaling back their energy consumption, or the regional human population declining.

That said, I took a look at the first 3 claims made against the project:

1..Extensive destruction of protected salmon and trout habitat would hurt fish populations.

How would this alleged destruction occur? The area to be disturbed is just above the falls, and contains no spawning habitat and extremely little juvenile rearing habitat. Fish don't spawn and rear in rapids and waterfalls.


2 Reduced instream flows would be dangerously low to salmon and steelhead migrating downstream.

Again, how so? The fish need enough water to migrate downstream at this point on the river, not for spawning or rearing. A minimum year around instream flow will be required for this purpose, and it may be higher for aesthetic reasons, or for recreation if kayakers want to float over the falls.


3. Generation turbines and tailrace would destroy salmon spawning habitat.

Salmon and steelhead don't spawn in the location where the tailrace would be located. If the project is developed, the PUD will be required to ensure that the tailrace does not interfere with fish locating the fish ladder entrance.

It seems like the opposition cannot make a point without exaggerating or outright falsifying the potential project impacts. That's pretty weak IMO. If a hydro project were being built where anadromous fish occur, Sunset Falls is about as close to a benign location as one could find. I think the opponents are trying very hard to say they oppose the project based on reasons of aesthetics (not that much will actually be visible) and NIMBY.

Sg

I for one don't want to be at the beckon of a river flow controlled by a dam and I don't know if it's true or not but i've heard Steelhead have gone up that. This is just the start of things. After the dam is put in they'll be saying "powers cheap move up here", then "lets make a thousand acre farm in the corner over there, we'll get a permit to withdraw water from the dam" then "we're gonna flush all the water for two weeks before running the South fork dry for irrigation purposes". There's no need for it now and there never will be.

My reason for being there is to find out more details.

From what I know now, I don't see it doing much harm, but I don't see it generating much electricity either, at least not enough to help much.

So my question is why do they think it's a good idea.

It is not a dam in the sense of Columbia or Cowlitz dams. It is a setup quite like Snoqualmie Falls. When generating power the water goes in the pipe at the top of the falls and comes out at the bottom. When not generating, it all goes over the falls.

Like Salmo suggested, if you want electricity this is one of the more fish friendly ways to do it.

As long as people keep moving here, or having kids, the demand for electricity will rise. There is no method of generation currently in place that does not have some negative environmental impact.

I don't think it's like Snoqualmie Falls at all, I think it is going to be a dam about 10 feet tall that actually backs up and makes a lake all the while filling up with crap like the Elwha did.

Snoqualmie has a small diversion dam

Besides the outmigrating "wild" Skamania strain juvenile steelhead that have developed quite a population on their own, I worry about siltation issues. Will there be any? If there is, I'm not for it. We already have a problem with a slide below Duffie crk. The cleaner the gravel, the better. Look what happen to the Sauk several years back with sand and silt. Wild steelhead took a good hit and that was from a major flood event. You were hard pressed to find runs that weren't filled in with sand and silt. They are just now starting to show signs of coming back. While that is an extreme comparison, I just think our few wild salmonids deserve the cleanest water we can give them since we wreak havoc on so many other levels of their survival.

CC,

There will be some sediment, including silt, accumulation and release. However the quantity will be far less than what happened on the Sauk, which was due to natural conditions at Chocolate Glacier up the Suiattle. The quantity probably won't be measurably different than the amount moved naturally by the river during any good freshet. Of course that natural sediment movement is due to unnatural logging and road building, but that is another topic.

Sg

Thanks Salmo. Did I see you from a distance land a steely on the Spey a few days ago?

■Highway 2 traffic, already extremely congested at times, would be halted for construction vehicles and equipment for three years. Businesses relying on Highway 2 traffic concerned for their livelihoods.
■The economic value doesn’t add up and the power generated would cost 3.5 times the power on the open market
■SnoPUD’s hydro track record with new hydro is poor – Youngs Creek lost over a million dollars last year and applied to FERC for financial exemption because of the loss, which puts part of the cost of their losses on taxpayers.
■Power generation curve of the dam project based on river flows is almost exactly the opposite of power demand in Snohomish County
■The hydro project would only generate at capacity in the spring, when there is a surplus of energy in the Northwest, and demand is at its lowest.
■With the except of December, project would produce minimal or no power during peak power demand
■SnoPUD’s recent acquisition of a certificate to sell renewable power to California concerns Washingtonians who don’t want state’s protected resources sold off to our states
■Homeowners would be forced off their land via eminent domain
■If a dam is allowed on a State Scenic Waterway and NPCC protected area for such a small amount of power, no river is safe from dams.
■SnoPUD has misrepresented data and level of opposition to media and FERC

Great article, where'd it come from?

Jerry, good points.
I vote no.
We don't need anymore government money holes. I think Obama has proved that case.
And PUD still wants to dump money into the Tidal power idea.

there has never been a time or project that was good for the river or stream, anything man does to the system has hurt that system.

Leave the Sky alone and let it run free!

I attended both the tour of the proposed sites and the meeting in Index.

I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about project until I saw the sites and listened to the plan, or to be more precise, their lack of planning.

This entire thing seems to be a way to sell power to California.....at any cost. This dam will only supply power during times when there is a surplus of power in WA, late fall and spring, the flows won't typically be high enough in the summer or winter.

While on the tour there were several conversations with PUD that included questions they had no answers for, as in most questions. The answer was frequently, "well we have several options and nothing has been decided yet", or “further studies will be needed". This included the amount of water left flowing in the main river, makeup of the rock they plan to tunnel through, whether the harmonic vibration from the water running through the 19' diameter tunnel will be heard or felt by the home owners near it (it runs directly under some people’s property), whether the vibration will weaken the surrounding rock (it’s a very brittle type of granite), will the rock release heavy metals that can contaminate the river downstream when new surfaces are exposed as it has in other tunnel projects, how will it affect fish and other wildlife, etc.

The first question asked at the meeting was whether a cost analysis had been done and would this project at least break even. They had no answer because they didn’t have that information. This answer was right in line with the answers given during the tour. The opponents that spoke did a very job of pointing out how bad of an idea this is, and how it goes against state law (minor issue).

There was more, but it’s getting late.

The owner where I work is one of the property owners really close to the proposed dam site and has been heavily involved in the opposition to this project and has been getting the same run around with answers to applicable questions. When PUD runs into a dead end on one variation of the dam they run another variant up the flag pole.

I met Dave on the tour and he is going to get me some signs to put on my property.

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule Jody. This "plan" will be ever evolving and long range.

Understand the argument that folks don't want the alterations to the flows so that power can be generation. Keeping natural flows if you will.

Does that same concern/desire extend to the artificial passing of anadromous fish above the falls (all three). How does one argue that artificially passing anadromous fish above falls is OK but generating power is not? Seems to me it follows that keeping flows natural quickly leads one to the position that returning the fishing populations to the natural state of resident trout only (stop the truck and haul) quickly follows.

The trap and haul facility at Sunset falls is now more than 50 years old and has reached/is reaching the end of its practical life and is in need of serious upgrades. The power generation proposals I have seen include those trap and haul updates as part of the project.

Curt