Skyway News' cover story on Crown Hydro:After listening to Peter Grills and Crown Hydro give their presentation at the last Park Board meeting, I was undecided on this issue. It had its drawbacks and advantages. Now I am becoming more opposed to it. Here are some of my reasons:
http://www.skywaynews.net/articles/2004/03/15/news/news02.txt
* Contrary to Commissioner Carol Kummer's ignorant statement that "waterpower is about as green as it gets," hydroelectric generation does in fact have a variety of adverse environmental and economic impacts. Due to the small size and location of this particular project, some of those problems are minimized or non-existent, for example, no productive land will be flooded. However, many these problems remain (according to the University of Illinois):
-- Increased sedimentation, which results in increased flooding.
-- Increased erosion of downstream banks and floodplains.
-- Increased eutrophication (reduced dissolved oxygen, increased algae, etc. like the problems we have with our city lakes).
-- Water chemistry and quality changes, including thermal build-up, oxygen depletion, marine plant growth, iron oxidation, hydration of anhydrite, acid attack of materials in rock, solution of carbonate and saline rocks, and even releases of methyl mercury (a good possiblility for this site, given its proximity to historical coal burning).
-- Stagnant water in the headrace pool can crontribute to the spread of disease.
-- Increased turbidity.+
-- Thermal stratification.+
Also, until 1990, it was assumed that greenhouse gas emission did not exist for hydroelectric plants. More recent studies indicate otherwise. According to the Univ. of Illinois: "Studies have been attributed these emissions to submerged vegetation decomposition, algae releasing carbon dioxide, and accumulation of organic nutrients from rain and rivers. Typically, vegetation is not cleared and it begins to decompose underwater. In lower depths, anaerobic decomposition can release methane and in the top layers, aerobic decomposition can release carbon dioxide. The amount of emissions released depended on climate, altitude, temperature, dam depth, area, and surrounding vegetation."
* The requirement for safety fences along the tail race, an intrinsic part of the Mill Ruins Park. The Skyway article mentions this, and notes that the Park Board was opposed to the project last year on this basis. If you've been to the park, now imagine it with chain link fences along both sides of the tail race. Imagine how much less understanding you might appreciate if you couldn't get close enough to see where the tail races of the ruined mills emptied into this restored shared tailrace. Crown Hydro talks about adding to the interpretive qualities of the park, but this seems to detract from them.
* It will only generate around 3100 kilowatts at peak, and the peak production depends on adequate water flow. Crown Hydro's rights to the water come after Xcel Energy's, so during low water, Crown Hydro may not get any water or significantly reduced water. Compare this 3.1+ megawatts with Xcel Energy's Riverside plant which generates 746 megawatts. That's 4-tenths of a percent of Xcel's plant.
I'm generally pretty "green" environmentally speaking, and therefore am positively disposed towards most any cleaner, renewable energy sources. But I wonder if this project is worth the costs?
* Risk of damage to historic structures. There are several of these. Crown Hydro and the Park Board of course say that maintenance contracts, performance bonds and insurance (not yet worked out as of the last Park Board meeting) would insure nothing bad happened. But how many times has the public been assured with words like these only to end up having a calamity ensue, or to have a project fail and the taxpayer be left holding the bag? I'm sure each of you can name several. Among the risks to this project:
-- Adding an extension to the beautiful, landmark, historical Stone Arch Bridge. We don't build many stone arch bridges these days, do we? How are they going to insure no damage to the existing bridge occurs? What if part of it collapses as they try to graft a new piece on?
-- Excavation in an area that is riddled with archaeology and well, old basements, tail races, vaults, tunnels, timbers, etc. from the 19th century and early 20th century industries. We don't really know what is down there. Excavation might only destroy some minor artifacts, or it might open a huge hole into which water and money might have a strong propensity for flowing.
-- Erosion of tail race. Crown Hydro says they are "responsible" to make sure it gets maintained. But the walls are made of soft limestone. If Crown Hydro "can't make the eocnomics of this project work without the [$300,000 a year] subsidy" then what happens when maintenance of the tail race gets expensive? Do they neglect it to save moeny? Do they pour concrete over it and destroy its historic value and waste all the taxpayer money that was spent restoring it? When a for-profit business gets in a tight place, all the good intentions of one or two individuals who started the project years ago (remember this is a 50 year lease) might go by the wayside.
* On the one hand, the Crown Hydro folks talked a good game, describing with excitement how the backers of the project are interested in the historic nature of power generation near that location, and so forth. It's easy to get on board with that kind of talk, and Peter Grills, the presenting lawyer is smooth, having done this kind of work all over the country and world for lots of hydroelectric projects. But on the other hand, my gut tells me something isn't quite right, from a financial point of view. As Walt Dziedzic pointed out in the last Park Board meeting, the project might be "too skinny."
Let's look at some numbers:
In return for $5.1 million from the Xcel renewable energy fund, plus a state renewable energy subsidy of about $300,000 per year and a contract with Xcel to buy all of the electricity (at what price?), Crown Hydro proposes to build a plant in the Mill Ruins Park, and spend no more than $10 million for everything, including park improvements, insurance and one time payments to the Park Board.
In return, Xcel energy gets up to another 3.1 megawatts of electricity it can distribute, and the Park Board gets $30,000 a year for a 50-year lease on the property. We also get some changes to the Mill Ruins Park. What about those changes? From the Skyway article:
>> Kathleen Swenson, the Park Board's Mill Ruins Park coordinator, called the Crown Hydro plant "disastrous" for park programs. The park is a work in progress, and the next phase includes more public access to areas adjacent to the ruins, she said.
"It won't be a beautiful recreation area anymore; it will be an industrial area," Swenson said. "People are not going to want to come on walking tours," she said.
Long-term park plans included having the public help excavate areas, such as the Cataract Mill, Swenson said.
She questioned whether the hydro project met the Park Board's mission to preserve and protect parkland. <<
We also lose a 37-car parking lot in the park, used by park and riverfront visitors, as well as the $8500/year in parking revenue it generated.
Those numbers make me worry that this project is going to be a taxpayer-funded piece of corporate welfare. Even if not, the location in one of the park system's premier, historic parks gives me pause. Then there are the rest of costs and risks.
It's not sounding like a good idea to me right now.
Chris Johnson Fulton
REMINDERS:
1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
