McKenzie hydro plants proposed

A startup “clean tech” company based in San Francisco has filed an application with federal officials for the right to place nine small hydropower plants along a 34-mile stretch of the McKenzie River.

A startup “clean tech” company based in San Francisco has filed an application with federal officials for the right to place nine small hydropower plants along a 34-mile stretch of the McKenzie River.

Principle Power Hydro says the “run of the river” projects would not involve the construction of any dams or reservoirs, and could generate up to 83 megawatts of power that it would sell to the Eugene Water & Electric Board or other utilities.

The company estimates it would cost $6.3 million to build the nine projects, which would be dotted along the McKenzie from Scott Creek, just upstream from Paradise Campground, down to Vida. The projects would include diversion weirs, penstocks or canals, small-turbine powerhouses and transmission lines.

Environmental groups have cast a wary eye. Josh Laughlin, conservation director for the Cascadia Wildlands Project, said the proposed projects would be an environmental and recreational disaster for the most intensively used portion of the McKenzie.

“With fish species teetering on the brink of extinction, why would anyone even consider adding more infrastructure to this world-renowned river?” he said. “People come from all over the world to fish and float the river, not pass by more electricity-generating infrastructure.

“We’re interested in nipping this in the bud early,” he said.

Above Scott Creek, the McKenzie is a designated Wild and Scenic River where hydro development is prohibited. But Laughlin said a new state law on renewable energy portfolio standards also prohibits new hydro development along most of the stretch that’s of interest to Principle Power.

EWEB spokesman Marty Douglass said the utility only recently learned about the application and has no immediate position.

“Our experience says it won’t be easy and there will be lots of interest groups and agencies they’ll have to deal with,” Douglass said. “We know that fisheries issues are a pretty high priority, given that there are endangered species present.”

Douglass said EWEB would consider buying electrical power from new sources, but is generally trying to steer away from more hydropower as it seeks to diversify its own energy portfolio.

In its Jan. 15 application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Principle Power asks for a three-year preliminary permit to allow for technical and environmental analysis. The company said it’s begun arranging meetings with interested parties.

Principle Power identifies a 900-foot drop in river elevation along the 34-mile stretch of McKenzie it is interested in, sufficient to provide up to 13 megawatts of power per plant.

The application asserts that the projects have a public benefit consistent with Oregon’s new renewable energy law, which requires the state’s utilities to provide up to 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. The projects will reduce carbon emissions and help the local economy by creating jobs tied to the plants’ construction and operation, the application says.

Principle Power CEO Alla Weinstein of Seattle said the company’s goal is “to reach a win-win solution involving the users of the river and the need for the inhabitants of the planet to generate as much renewable energy as possible.”

The company’s intent is to minimize impacts to the McKenzie as much as possible, and to build plants that meet the criteria of the Low-Impact Hydropower Institute, she said.

In the bigger picture, she said, it’s important to pursue renewable energy wherever possible because “if we continue to use fossil fuels, there will be no planet to live on.”

River advocacy groups are actually on the same side of the larger environmental issues as Principle Power, she said. “There’s always a way to find a compromise if we don’t start with guns pointed at each other,” she said.

“Our goal is really straightforward: to try to put as many ‘green’ electrons in the grid as we can.”

In an article linked to Greentech Media, Principle Power President Jonathan Bonanno said the company is dedicated to “building large-scale facilities to produce clean electricity, desalinate salt water, pump liquids and make synthetic biofuels from renewable and sustainable sources on economic parity with fossil substitutes.”

Principle Power, which formed Jan. 1, is a “global independent power producer committed to delivering green, sustainable energy products,” according to its Web site. The McKenzie River proposal is the company’s first project.

Principle Power’s proposal differs from other recent applications seeking to place hydro-generating plants at existing dams. Symbiotics LLC of Utah hopes to start building a plant later this year at Dorena Lake Dam east of Cottage Grove, and both it and the Emerald People’s Utility District are vying to build a plant at Fall Creek Dam near Lowell.