Researchers at three national scientific laboratories have
teamed up with state water experts, environmentalists and local
irrigation officials to study how to increase hydropower generation in
the region while still providing enough water for farmers, ranchers and
fish.
The scientists want their efforts in the Deschutes River
Basin — the Deschutes River, from the Pelton Round Butte dam complex
south to the headwaters, and the Crooked River, along with their
tributaries and canals — to serve as an example for other regions around
the nation.
Instead of considering each hydropower project and
its effects on fish and water flow separately, the study approaches
them from a basinwide perspective. The resulting research could help
speed up the approval processes.
Developers will be able to
explore many potential sites in the basin at once and see the impacts
they would cause up front, rather than dealing with them in the middle
of the approval process.
In past decades, the major push and pull
on rivers has concerned the desire to generate renewable energy from
dams and the desire to protect waterways for fish. The Northwest’s
largest dams, built in the 1930s-70s, decimated fish runs.
Now researchers are identifying locations throughout the basin suitable for small
hydroelectric projects that would not impede fish.
Collaborating
to spot opportunities for improving stream flows, generating power
and ensuring water for irrigation districts across a river basin, rather
than one location in it, can yield benefits for all involved parties,
such as lowering analysis costs and forming partnerships among otherwise
disparate groups, according to a report on the progress of the study,
which was released in September 2011, halfway through the project.
Nearly
every hydropower-related group imaginable is participating in the
study, from the U.S. Department of Energy on down to the Central Oregon
Irrigation District.
Almost 50 people represented cities,
irrigation districts, utility companies, federal agencies and other
groups at a July 2011 meeting on the study. Scientists from the Pacific
Northwest, Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories attended, too.
The
groups have been working on the project since 2010, with about $1.2
million spent so far. It will wrap up with a final report and online
resources by the year’s end. The study’s outcomes could assist people
on a local level, around the state and nationally.
While
hydropower is not new to Central Oregon, the Deschutes basin has emerged
as a national leader in establishing smaller-scale hydroelectric
projects, and untapped opportunities abound, the report states.
“Working through these projects takes a lot of effort,” said Simon Geerlofs, a
Seattle-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory analyst who’s managing the study.
Selecting the Deschutes
Despite
the establishment of small hydro projects in the basin, it took almost a
year for researchers and people working with them to weed out other
river basins before they selected the Deschutes in February 2011.
Criteria
for selection included existing hydropower projects, “significant
opportunities” for future hydropower generation and environmental
restoration, coordination or leadership across the basin and the ability
to share lessons learned with other river basins.
Portland
General Electric’s willingness to work with other local organizations
made a difference in choosing the Deschutes for the pilot project,
according to the report.
Generating up to 376 megawatts of
electricity — which can power more than 280,000 homes — at the Pelton
Round Butte dam complex it owns with the Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs, Portland General Electric is “the major power producer in the
basin,” the report states.
One distinguishing character trait
for the Deschutes basin : 90 percent of its water is for agricultural
purposes, according to a 2011 report from the Deschutes Water Alliance, a
long-term water-management planning group.
But other river
basins in the U.S. may have their own unique considerations , which
makes the Deschutes study relevant for other basins, Geerlofs said.
Irrigation, he said, is “the third leg of the stool” in the Deschutes basin.
It was apparent to Geerlofs and his colleagues from the beginning of the study —
toward
the end of 2010 — that irrigators would need to be considered for the
study, because almost all the basin’s hydroelectric projects are tied to
irrigation districts, Geerlofs said.
Cache of sites
Now
that the researchers have accumulated more than 60 sites for potential
hydroelectric generation in the study area, they are figuring out how
the sites relate to one another, Geerlofs said.
Researchers will
upload to the project website (see “On the Web”) key findings and
reports they produce during the project’s two-year duration. They will
also release an online tool for visualizing power-generation and
environmental-improvement opportunities on rivers and canals and effects
on other water users.
Case studies will be posted on Central
Oregon Irrigation District’s 5-megawatt Juniper Ridge hydroelectric
project and Swalley Irrigation District’s 750-kilowatt Ponderosa
hydroelectric project, both of which came online north of Bend in 2010.
The two installations exemplify the importance of accommodating multiple interests in hydroelectric development, Geerlofs said.
“You don’t quite understand how complicated this stuff is until you get into it,” he said.
The
final report itself should be released by year’s end. Another meeting
of local representatives should follow soon thereafter, he said.
Once
done with the Deschutes study, the researchers plan to look at other
river basins around the country and carry out a process similar to the
one under way now, Geerlofs said.
Accelerating processes
Locally,
the researchers’ results could support planning efforts for the
Deschutes basin, which has been going on since around 2004, said Tod
Heisler, executive director of the nonprofit Deschutes River
Conservancy.
The online visualization tool for analyzing a variety
of scenarios, possibly including the effects of climate change, could
be the best resource available so far, Heisler said.
“This is a
tool that we hope will help us look at some of those big
water-management issues and help us … put together a better regional
water-management strategy and agreement,” he said.
The tool could
smooth out the approval process for hydroelectric facilities, because
applicants should be able to see potential impacts to the environment
and water supply before submitting proposals, said Kyle Gorman, manager
of Oregon’s south-central region at the state’s Water Resources
Department.
And the tool could show the public how minimally
projects in canals affect fish and water supplies for farmers, said Jim
Wagner, a consultant working with Earth by Design Inc., which is
planning a hydroelectric plant on a North Unit Irrigation District canal
north of Haystack Reservoir.
Looking at all interests across a
whole basin makes sense to Erik Steimle, head of licensing in the United
States for Toronto-based Riverbank Power, which wants to build a
7-megawatt hydroelectric project at Wickiup Reservoir.
“Hydropower
is a clean source of local electricity, and new products can be built
in ways that are in concert with the local environment,” he said.