Ken Bradley wrote:
I guess Crown Hydro won't be generating that 20 million kilowatt hours per year your friends at ME3 said they would.Main opposition points vs Crown's Hydro Project include
2. Aesthetic flows over the falls/spillway. A minimum of 2000 cu. ft /sec was established in 1993 as a minimum. The Crown Hydro folks support this as a permanent standard.
Only 50% of the time in a given year is 2000 or more
available. So this is an arbitrary figure not in
relation to reality. It was established to prevent
Xcel from confiscating all available water to add 10
additional megawatts in 1987. Park Comm. Commissioner
Erwin has suggested 500 as a minimum with more
available during the tourist season. Crown Hydro has
agreed to do this by programming its computers to slow
its water intake and produce less power, but keep the
spillway adequately covered.
It does not seem like theBack to those darn condo owners again. They might be pretty vocal and visible right now. That tends to happen when folks are blindsided, and when some of them are well known figures in town. But it's not just about them, sorry to say.
condo owners believe this and apparently Commissioner
Erwin accepted this before he decided against the
project for other reasons.
"Gee, it never did that before." How many engineering disasters do I need to list to dispell you of the belief that just because some engineers (my own background, by the way) say it looks ok, it really is? The Space Shuttle (times 2)? Tacoma Narrows Bridge? Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkway? Estonia ferry disaster 1994? Bopal? Chernobyl? Three Mile Island?3. Even if the entire plant is underground, it will cause vibrations to affect the geology of the area and cause the condo buildings to collapse.
There is no vibration possible because turbines cannot
operate - and will shut down - if any vibration is
detected. They are firmly anchored in concrete and set
to stabilize themselves like a gyroscope. Three
different engineering studies have been conducted to
determine the stability of the area and the tunnels.
They once distributed 5X as much water for 50 years to
the 13 mills in the area before the mills were shut
down in the 1930's. The St. Anthony dam is
significantly bigger than Crown Hydro and buildings
have not crumbled into the river.
Just because a structure stood for 100 years does not mean it will stand for another 100. Time wears everything out and down.
That's not to say this is a primary concern of mine, or a high risk. But the rebuttal serves to distract and ignores reality.
4. The plant should go on the other side of the river.I've not heard anybody suggest that. Strawman.
May of us are outraged. So? My calculations show this project making its investors wealthy on the public dime, and doing next to nothing to fix the over-consumption of polluting energy sources. Gary Smaby doesn't think it washes financially, either, and he's got a lot more financial smarts than both of us put together times two.5. The economics are bogus and a waste of ratepayer and taxpayer money.
The RDF process determined otherwise and the power
agreement with Xcel/Crown is in line with other
renewable producers; and the contract was approved by
the PUC (2003). The government already gives out
billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to the
coal, petroleum, and nuclear power industry; the
incentives for renewable energy do not even come close
to comparing to the subsidies for those fuel
industries. As a ratepayer and tax payer people should
be outraged that we currently subsidies polluters!
SHPO is still opposed, last I heard.6. Condo owners and others have argued the historical integrity of the Mill Ruins will be ruined.
Apparently Crown Hydro and State Historic Preservation
Office (SHPO) had numerous long meetings about this
project.
This is the place whereTourists are a lot more interested in the Stone Arch Bridge and the Falls of St. Anthony than hydro power. If they want to tour hydro power, they visit Hoover Dam -- by the thousands, I might add.
hydroelectric was first produced in the US and
therefore has tourism value.
7. Why is the project on Parkland?I've not heard anyone voice that question, and it's only a question, not opposition. Strawman.
Really? That's why the Park Board wrote a detailed, lengthy and scathing opposition filing to FERC about it in 2003? Or perhaps that's why Park Board legal representation wrote an opposition filing in 1996 saying the Park Board was "unalterably opposed to the project" under the project terms at the time which would have granted Crown Hydro the power of eminent domain? I suppose just about anyone would try to negotiate a lease with that kind of threat hanging over them.
Park Board staff and Crown Hydro determined the
Cataract Mill area was the best site; and Park Board
approved the selection of the area (1999) and offered
to do a lease with Crown Hydro in 2001.
You would be wrong. They have to open a head race to get water to the site, and they have to extend the Stone Arch Bridge to construct the forebay in such a way so as to reuse parts of the existing tunnels, which saves them money on building all new tunnels. Plus, they may actually require some sort of forebay in order to operate such a facility, either by engineering requirements, or by water way regulatory requirements.8. The deal with Crown for the benefit of the Park Board is not enough.
Crown offered to build the headrace area into a park,
extend the Stone Arch Bridge, build a plank road,
(about $1 million). Apparently none of this is
necessary merely to produce electricity.
Personally I don't want the Stone Arch Bridge altered. Any alteration they might do to it would be a large, ugly blot on its beauty. I don't see that as a benefit.
If its invisible, how can it be an interpretive and tourist advantage to have it? I think even Crown Hydro admits the zoning has to be changed. It's just one more legal hurdle on their checklist.9. The powerhouse is a visual eyesore and an industrial use of land zoned commercial.
The powerhouse is entirely underground as seen from
River road and follows the slope of Portland Ave. The
top can be covered with trees, flowers or other
vegetation and will look like a garden from the higher
reaches of the condos in the area. Utilities do not
fit the definition of industrial, but the zoning can
be adapted if required. The fact that the entire
operation is underground and invisible is an important
factor.
Yet again with the condo owners, and this time, let's name some pricey figures to give everyone that it's really just a bunch of rich snobs practicing NIMBYism so that we can garner some envy-generated dislike towards them. Did you actually check the sale prices of all the condos in the area? I'm willing to bet some of them sold for considerably lower prices. Yes, it must be those condo owners fault that Manitoba Hydro destroyed those homes.10. Condo owners have argued their property values are in jeopardy. They paid $600,000 - $1,000,000 for their condos. Again, many people in Northern Manitoba have had their entire homes burned to the ground and flooded so we can have electricity.
I might be wrong, but it would appear to me that
constructing a new park and providing money to improve
the area will improve property values. The area now is
run down in certain parts and dominated by a parking
lot in the headrace area. The city has planned to
build a water park here since 1983. Crown Hydro
fulfilled that plan which called for using the water
flows for a small hydro. I have been told that is the
reason Crown started this project in 1991.
What new park will be constructed by Crown Hydro? They're building in an existing park, one which we taxpayers already paid millions of dollars to build.
Here's how real estate really works: your property is worth only what people think it is worth, nothing more and nothing less. If lots of people down there on the river think their property values are going to go down because of this, they're probably right. If they think Crown Hydro is an undesirable neighbor, even if the fears are imaginary, then potential buyers are likewise likely to think the same way, human nature being what it is. Prices drop, property taxes drop.
I state with some assurance that most of the people opposed to the Crown Hydro project in the Mill Ruins Park are in favor of clean, renewable energy -- just not in this location. Many of them have already said they would support a similar project elsewhere, such as at the lower lock and dam. Further, if renewable hydro power is the over riding reason to build this, just give the water to Xcel across the river. I'm sure they would happy to scale up their production.
Which reminds me -- I've been told that Xcel management itself hates this project. It's just a voting marjority of loose cannons at the Xcel Renewable Energy Fund who like it for some reason. Whether that's true or not, it's important to distinguish between the two entities.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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