Administration Ends Innovative Program Designed to Reduce Impacts of Hydropower Dams on Fish

"While we understand the Administration's desire to reduce federal spending, the decision to greatly slash, then end, the DOE hydropower program is at best penny-wise and pound-foolish. This program's progress over the past decade in developing advanced turbine technologies is about to yield significant results that will lead to more clean and inexpensive hydropower while reducing impacts on fish. Once commercialized, these technologies will pay for themselves countless times over while reducing conflict and legal disputes," stated Linda Church Ciocci, executive director of the National Hydropower Association.

The DOE hydropower program, which received $4.8 million from Congress for FY 2005 after the Administration recommended $5 million, is a joint program between DOE and the hydropower industry. It began approximately a decade ago with matching funds from industry.

Its general mission is to improve hydropower's environmental performance and increase its contribution to national energy supply.

The program mostly focuses on the Advanced Hydropower Turbine (AHT), a turbine primarily designed to improve fish passage. In addition to improving fish passage, the new turbine will increase hydropower project efficiency and result in power output increases. While the DOE hydropower budget has historically accounted for less than two percent of the budget for renewable energy and efficiency programs, it has produced results.

In the fall of 2004, Grant County PUD in the state of Washington installed an AHT at its Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River. Testing of the turbine will start this spring during juvenile salmon runs. This testing will require analysis, and possible further testing, through 2007.

Grant's success could pave the way for other projects with fish migration issues. The AHT could practically eliminate the downstream impacts of dams from a fish passage standpoint. Since the federal government is the largest user of hydropower resources, it stands to gain significantly from the successes of the DOE program.

"Quite simply, there is far too much important work to be accomplished to abandon the DOE program now. We hope Congress will restore the funding and ensure that hydropower work continues at DOE," Ciocci concluded.