City Won’t Raise Dam Height Long Fight Over Adding To Upriver Dam Ends For Now; City Won’t Appeal State Decision

After spending at least $400,000 on the project, the city of Spokane is giving up plans to raise a Spokane River dam - at least for the next six years.

“Obviously, we’re very, very disappointed,” said George Miller, design engineer for the city’s department of water and hydroelectric services. “We thought this was going to be a win-win proposition for the community, but it isn’t panning out that way.”

First proposed in the early 1980s, the plan called for adding 18 inches to the height of Upriver Dam so it could generate an additional $175,000 worth of electricity each year. Environmentalists, canoeists, fishermen and others fought the proposal, which would have stilled scenic rapids visible from the Centennial Trail in the Spokane Valley.

Last month, the Washington Department of Ecology denied a permit that was critical to the project. Appealing that decision could have cost $100,000, said Miller.

Even if the city won the appeal of the Ecology Department’s decision, it would have to negotiate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which was concerned about the project’s effects on bald eagle habitat, Miller said.

Finally, it would have had to spend $771,000 to mitigate environmental damage staff for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said the project would cause.

“We’ve concluded that we’re at the breaking point where all the additional revenue that would be generated would go back into the project,” said Miller.

In the 1980s, the city paid $225,000 to 91 landowners whose riverfront property would have been partially flooded if the dam were raised. The city spent at least another $175,000 on engineering studies and other costs, said Miller.

Miller and hydroelectric director Brad Blegen said it’s possible the plan could be revived after 2004. That’s when the city must renegotiate its contract to sell electricity to Washington Water Power Co.

The project may become financially feasible if energy deregulation causes electricity rates to climb at the time the new contract is being written, Blegen said.

Miller noted that many world leaders are becoming concerned about greenhouse gases. One way to reduce them, he said, is to replace fossil fuels with electricity produced from hydroelectric dams.

“Eventually, somebody may come to the conclusion that, regardless of some minor environmental problems, the best solution is to raise the (dam),” Miller said. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Upriver Dam proposal dropped

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ABOUT THE DAM One of six dams on the 110-mile-long Spokane River, Upriver Dam was built in 1910 and replaced in 1935. At 38 feet tall and 725 feet wide, it created a pool four miles long.