EWEB set to begin upgrades on plants.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

Better fish ladders and screens will go in this year at two power plants on the lower McKenzie River now that the Eugene Water & Electric Board has settled a protracted dispute over a new federal license for the hydroelectric projects.

The improvements at the Leaburg and Walterville plants represent the lion's share of more than $40 million in work scheduled to begin in May.

"Everything has all come together as we'd hoped," said Gale Banry, EWEB's relicensing project manager. "Essentially, we've resolved the regulatory and legal issues that had been surrounding this license for some time."

The upgrades are designed to help fish - particularly bull trout and spring chinook salmon, which are on the federal endangered species list - to safely pass Leaburg Dam and keep them from getting chopped up in the turbines at either plant.

EWEB originally proposed the project in 1989 at the start of the federal relicensing process for the power plants. Federal energy regulators issued EWEB a 40-year license covering both plants in 1997, but the work was delayed while environmental groups and state and federal fish and wildlife agencies challenged the new license.

The utility reached a final agreement last month. The Walterville and Leaburg plants, built in 1911 and 1930 respectively, together provide about 6 percent of Eugene's electricity.

"I'm delighted the disagreement came to a close and we are finally able to spend our time and energy focusing on building these fish improvement passages, rather than spending time and energy negotiating resolution of the conflict," said Laurie Power, EWEB's environmental manager. "It just took so long."

She said the fish passage improvements are critical to making the hydro projects "as invisible as possible" and to aiding in the recovery of the upper Willamette spring chinook, "an icon of the McKenzie watershed and a key indicator of watershed health."

The Leaburg Dam will get a new right bank fish ladder, replacing one from the 1920s that hasn't worked in years. Other work includes modifying the left bank ladder and the fish screen at the Leaburg canal below the dam and replacing the powerhouse turbines and generators.

EWEB also plans to raise the water in Leaburg Lake by 18 inches at the end of 2003. This will allow the utility to make up for water it lost in the Leaburg canal when it installed a fish screen at the canal in 1983 and made some changes to the screen in the early 1990s. This in turn will increase the power generation capability at the Leaburg powerhouse, about 3 miles downstream from the dam.

Raising the reservoir will cost about $4.6 million. The cost includes strengthening the rollgates at the dam, building adequate protection for Highway 126, improving the intake at the Leaburg fish hatchery and making necessary modifications to Lloyd Knox/Waterboard Park.

The cost also includes roughly $300,000 to mitigate the rising water's impact on private lots on the lake. The work could include moving some septic fields and docks and compensating landowners for land that goes under water.

In the next few weeks, EWEB officials plan to begin meeting with about 80 property owners to discuss their concerns.

"What we intend to do is work with each individual property owner ... and reach an agreement on the impact of the lake raise on their property and what the mitigation will be to compensate for that impact," said Marty Douglass, EWEB's public affairs manager.

Raising Leaburg Lake won't mean increased flooding problems, EWEB officials say. During floods, the rollgates will be raised so the surge of water passes through the dam.

Downstream, a fish screen will go in at the Walterville power canal intake, and the turbine and generator at the Walterville plant will be replaced.

The projects will be funded by 20-year bonds to be repaid by electric revenues.

The bulk of the work will continue through October. "It's going to be a busy construction season for us," Power said.

In early 1998, shortly after EWEB was relicensed for its hydroelectric projects at Walterville and Leaburg, the Oregon Natural Resources Council, the Pacific Rivers Council and other environmental groups filed suit challenging the amount of water the utility diverted from the river to power plants.

The groups argued that the diversions leave too little water for fish runs that are dwindling or on the federal endangered species list. The plants divert water to run through power turbines, lowering the water level along 13 miles of the McKenzie.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife recommended a minimum streamflow of 1,400 cubic feet per second, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission set the minimum flow at 1,000 feet per second.

In a loss for the plaintiffs, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower streamflow in 1999. But the court also ordered FERC to rewrite the license to satisfy some of the federal fisheries agencies' other conditions for fish passage.

Doug Heiken, Western Oregon field representative for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, said his group is happy that fish finally will benefit from some improvements at the power diversion canals.

But Heiken said the resources council and other groups still believe that the minimum streamflow level is too low, especially for spring chinook and bull trout, which were both listed as threatened species after the appeals court case began. "So we're not really satisfied with what's going on up there," he said. "We know the fish need more water than that, and we don't think 40 more years of the status quo is a great idea."

River records show that the lowest the streamflow has reached is 1,260 cubic feet per second.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission finished rewriting EWEB's license for the plants in April 2000. But the utility argued that some of the new compliance requirements were vague and broad, and it asked for clarification.

EWEB and the federal fish agencies reached a final settlement last spring, and FERC approved the agreement in mid-December.

Throughout the negotiations, EWEB was working on redesigning the fish passage improvements. That work was completed in September, and the federal commission is expected to give the new designs final approval this month.

EWEB faces another round of relicensing on its two hydro projects on the upper McKenzie. The license for the Carmen Smith plant, EWEB's largest at 108 megawatts, and the 10-megawatt Trail Bridge plant expire in 2008.

EWEB already is consulting with the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Marine Fisheries Service on bull trout, spring chinook and other listed species for that process.