Power To The People Wwp Juggles Conflicting Interests Seeking A Voice In Dam Relicensings

The Washington Water Power Co. is engaged in a high-water act on the Clark Fork River.

The Spokane utility must relicense dams at Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids by the end of the year 2001. At stake is 60 percent of its cheap hydroelectric capacity and almost half of its peaking capacity - the energy called on when demand hits maximum.

“They are substantially our backbone,” said Larry LaBolle, relicensing project manager.

Although there is virtually no chance the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would deny WWP the licenses - no incumbent license holder has ever been dislodged - the way the dams are operated, and the measures taken to reduce their impact on the environment, could significantly boost the cost of the electricity they generate.

Deregulation of the utility industry has heightened the sensitivity to price. Companies increasingly concerned about costs are nervous about the potential drag from even a one-tenth of a cent boost per kilowatt-hour.

“That’s really been an unfortunate convergence,” said likely have to spill a little water on weekends to highlight the waterfall below the dam.

City Administrator Mike Woodward said the condition will deprive residents of a sliver of energy they would otherwise get from the four megawatt plant, which supplies about 30 percent of the city’s load.

“It just makes our power a little more expensive,” he said, noting that the relicensing process itself has cost the community more than $200,000. The Moyie license expires next April.

“It’s all very expensive,” agreed Larry Weis, general manager of the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District.

The PUD must renew the license for its Box Canyon Dam on the Pend Oreille River by February 2002.

Weis said the potential expense and time associated with renewing the license are concerns, even when few difficulties with getting the license itself are anticipated.

Box Canyon, he said, is a run-of-the-river dam with only modest environmental impacts. In the summer, the facility near Ione enhances recreation, he said.

The dam does flood some land belonging to the Kalispel Tribe, but the courts are determining the compensation due for those encroachments, he said.

Weis worries that government agencies and other intervenors could prolong the process, and convince FERC to make costly changes.

He said many utilities are watching what WWP is doing on the Clark Fork to see if its collaborative approach, more expensive in the short term, produces savings over the term of the new license.

The utility with the biggest case-load is Idaho Power, with 12 dams to renew by the year 2010. Those projects represent two-thirds of its total hydrogenerating capacity.

Three licenses will expire this year.

Spokesman Jeff Veaman said Idaho Power at first followed the old model for preparing applications.

The paperwork was prepared inhouse, than taken to the public for comment. The result was repeated rounds of filings, rebuttals and refilings, he said, while competing interests struggled to make their desires understood.

Work on its Hells Canyon licenses started the same way in 1993, he said, but last year the Boise utility decided to try the collaborative method.

Now representatives from 50 organizations are actively participating on four task forces pulling together information, he said.

“We hope to achieve a collective understanding of the various competing interests,” Veaman said.

“These relicensing processes are very demanding,” said Mary McGown, conservation director for Idaho Rivers United.

She said the group likes Idaho Power’s new approach and the opportunities for more comment. But no one will know the payoff until an application is ready for FERC.

“We’re still a long ways from that,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo Graphic: Lapsing licenses