By Jeff Wright
The Register-Guard


Published: December 10, 2007 05:00AM

The state Department of Environmental Quality has scheduled two information sessions and a public hearing on a Utah company’s proposal to build a small hydroelectric power plant at Dorena Dam east of Cottage Grove.

The 58-year-old dam, located on the Row River and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and recreation, is made of earth and gravel with a concrete arch spillway.

Symbiotics LLC hopes to begin building a two-turbine plant with 8.3-megawatt capacity in 2009. The project envisions a new powerhouse near the dam’s existing spillway basin, a steel pipe from the Dorena Lake through the north dam abutment, a concrete-lined channel to discharge flows into the river below the spillway basin, a valve house and a 15-kilovolt transmission line.

Symbiotics also is in competition with the Emerald People’s Utility District to build a slightly larger hydro project on Fall Creek Dam in Lowell.

That project is not as far along in the permitting process, however.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a preliminary permit to Symbiotics on the Dorena project in 2001. But the company still must obtain a water quality certification — the subject of the upcoming sessions and hearing — from the DEQ.

Other reviewing agencies include the state Department of Fish & Wildlife, the state Water Resources Department, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department.

Also, the Army Corps of Engineers still must approve a construction permit.

The DEQ’s certification is intended to determine what effects, if any, the project will have on water quality.

As a “run-of-river” operation, the proposed project will only use water already released from the reservoir. There are no plans to manipulate flows to generate more power at peak demand periods, Symbiotics officials have said.

The company has said power generated by the dam would most likely be sold to local consumers, possibly through PacifiCorp.

Early projections are that the project would cost $8 million to build, and gross slightly more than $1 million in annual sales of electricity.

Dorena is one of about 250 dams around the country that Symbiotics has proposed retro­fitting with small “green” hydro projects. The company’s first projects to come online in Oregon could be Applegate Dam in Jackson County and Dorena.

Symbiotics was formed in the winter of 2001 after the California energy crisis dramatically increased West Coast open market power rates. The company’s principals are based in Utah and in Idaho.

Source: http://www.registerguard.com