Hydro Leader March 2022

Leader ydro H

march 2022

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 3

Nicholas Williams Power Office Manager Upper Colorado Basin Region

David Arend Deputy Regional Director Lower Colorado Basin Region

The Colorado Basin Drought and Its Effect on Reclamation’s Hydropower Generation

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The Drought’s Effects on Power Generation in the Upper Colorado Basin

Contents

March 2022 Volume 3, Issue 3 5 T he Colorado Drought and Hydropower Production

By Kris Polly

20 J aclyn Gnusti of Anchor QEA: Solving Sedimentation Woes

8 The Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Upper Colorado Basin

24 B rad Cavallo of Cramer Fish Sciences: Taking a Second Look at Dams, River Temperatures, and Salmon

14 T he Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Lower Colorado Basin

28 T om Osborn: Working With Irrigators to Increase Energy Efficiency

18 L ight Up Navajo: Powering 34 Innovations in the Pipeline at Krah USA Homes in the Navajo Nation 38 JOB LISTINGS

Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Hydro Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Hydro Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Hydro Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Hydro Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

4 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

SUBMISSIONS: Hydro Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or hydro.leader@waterstrategies.com.

ADVERTISING: Hydro Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Hydro Leader is distributed to all hydroelectric facility owners in the United States, to hydrorelated businesses, and to every member of Congress and governor’s office. For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Hydro Leader in electronic form, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com. hydroleadermag

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COVER PHOTO:

Nicholas Williams, Power Manager, Upper Colorado Basin Region, Bureau of Reclamation. David Arend, Deputy Regional Director, Lower Colorado Basin Region, Bureau of Reclamation. Background: Glen Canyon Dam. Background photo by Luca Bravo, licensed under CC0.

Portrait photos courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Eve Giordano, Media Assistant William Polly, Media Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Assistant Amanda Schultz,Media Assistant

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The Colorado Drought and Hydropower Production

By Kris Polly

E

veryone knows that drought means less water, but it may not be as immediately obvious that it can also mean less power. In the Colorado basin, however, that is becoming more and more apparent. In our dual cover stories this month, we speak with Nicholas Williams, the Bureau of Reclamation’s power office manager for the Upper Colorado Basin Region, and David Arend, Reclamation’s new deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Basin Region, about how drought is affecting Reclamation’s hydroelectric power generation in both halves of the basin.

Next, we speak with Deenise Becenti, the government and public affairs manager for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, which sources more than half its power from renewable sources, including hydropower and solar power.

Ms. Becenti tells us about how through the Light Up Navajo program, volunteer lineworkers from around the nation are helping connect thousands of previously unconnected homes in the Navajo Nation to the grid.

Jaclyn Gnusti, the senior managing engineer at environmental science and engineering consulting firm Anchor QEA, tells us about the many services the firm provides to address the problem of sedimentation in lakes and reservoirs and next to dams.

Brad Cavallo of scientific consulting firm Cramer Fish Sciences tells us about his involvement in recent discussions of dams’ effects on water temperature and fish habitat and

emphasizes the importance of taking a scientifically rigorous approach toward such questions.

Tom Osborn, an energy engineer at the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), tells us about the agency’s efforts to improve the energy efficiency both of BPA customers, including irrigators, and of power stations and substations themselves.

Krah USA, based in Prineville, Oregon, uses Germandesigned technology to make exceptionally large and durable high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, pipe. We speak with co-CEOs Midge Graybeal and Mark Theetge and consultant Marc Thalacker, the manager of the Three Sisters Irrigation District in Oregon, about Krah USA’s offerings for the hydro market.

Through efforts to save water, improve the performance of hydroelectric facilities, and boost energy efficiency, hydropower professionals are facing up to the challenges created by the Colorado basin drought. This challenge will continue to be highly relevant in coming years, as will their efforts to address it. H Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Hydro Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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The Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Upper Colorado Basin

Glen Canyon Dam, near Page, Arizona.

M

ore and more, the drought in the Colorado basin is affecting the amount of power that can be generated at Glen Canyon Dam and other hydropower plants on the Colorado River. That situation could get worse as lake levels decline. Hydro Leader spoke with Nicholas Williams, the Bureau of Reclamation’s power manager for the Upper Colorado Basin Region, about future scenarios and what the agency is doing to ensure continued power generation.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hydro Leader: Would you talk about the hydropower facilities you oversee?

Nicholas Williams: Reclamation is the second-largest producer of renewable hydroelectric power in the United

8 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

States. The agency generates an average of 40 billion kilowatthours of energy annually. That accounts for 15 percent of U.S. hydropower capacity and generation, equivalent to the demand of 3.8 million households. I am in the upper Colorado basin, but the entire Colorado River basin spans seven states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—as well as part of Mexico. Within the basin, Reclamation owns and operates 12 hydropower plants. I oversee eight of those: Glen Canyon in Arizona; Flaming Gorge in Utah; Fontenelle in Wyoming; and five in Colorado: Blue Mesa, Morrow Point, Crystal, Lower Molina, and Upper Molina. Those eight hydropower facilities have a total capacity of 1,788 megawatts. Glen Canyon, with a capacity of 1,320 megawatts, accounts for almost three-fourths of their total capacity.

Hydro Leader: What are some of the effects that the Colorado basin drought is having on Reclamation’s hydropower fleet?

Nicholas Williams: The drought has two primary effects on hydropower generation. The first is that it reduces the volume of water that we’re able to generate energy with. The second is that it reduces the depth of the water in the reservoirs.

That depth of water is important because it creates the force, or in technical terms, the head, that drives the turbines for hydroelectricity generation. The deeper the water, the more force we have for generating power. With reduced reservoir levels, we have less force. To date, in the upper Colorado River hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

Nicholas Williams: I am currently the manager of Reclamation’s Power Office for the Upper Colorado Basin Region, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering. I began working for Reclamation in 2004. At that time, much of my work was focused on modeling efforts, particularly modeling Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam for water quality and related programs. Later, I worked as regional liaison to Reclamation’s Washington, DC, office. Then I returned to Salt Lake City as the deputy power manager, and in 2020, I was promoted to the power manager position.

Maintenance work on the generators at Glen Canyon Dam.

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Low water elevations in Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam.

basin, the fluctuation in water volume has been the primary issue. Under some of our operating guidelines, in the future we will be releasing less water, which in turn will mean less generation. In water year 2022, which began on October 1, 2021, we are delivering 7.48 million acre-feet. In past years, our releases have been 8.23 million or even 9 million acrefeet. Water year 2022 will be a low year for generation, not only because of the lower reservoir elevation but also because we’re releasing less water.

Hydro Leader: To what degree is the drought already affecting the amount of power being generated? How might a continued drought affect power generation?

Nicholas Williams: The drought has reduced Reclamation’s entire Colorado River basin energy by 13 percent. We see that decline when we compare the 1988–1999 average annual energy production to the 2000–2020 average during the last 21 years of drought. Going forward, we anticipate an additional 16 percent decrease in energy generation for the years 2021–2023—in total, a roughly 30 percent drop from predrought conditions. We anticipate that that trend will continue. The two facilities that generate the majority of power for the entire basin are Glen Canyon, which I oversee, and its counterpart downstream, Hoover Dam. Those two facilities are at less than half capacity for reservoir storage, and it’s going to take a long time to fill them up. Going forward, at least until we start to fill them up, we will see less water released, which will affect generation. hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: Given that Glen Canyon Dam is a critical piece of Reclamation’s hydropower fleet, would you discuss the effects on that dam in particular?

Nicholas Williams: As of February 22, 2022, Lake Powell’s elevation was 3,527.98 feet above sea level. The minimum power pool elevation in Lake Powell at Glen Canyon Dam is 3,490 feet. We’re less than 40 feet above that critical, red-line elevation. Our February 2022 5-year projections show that Lake Powell has a 23 percent chance of dropping below minimum power pool in 2023. We expect to generate power until we reached that minimum power pool elevation. If we drop below that elevation, we would be unable to generate power, though water would continue to be released.

Deadpool is the elevation below which we can no longer release water from Lake Powell. That elevation is 3,370 feet—120 feet below minimum power pool.

As winter wraps up and spring runoff starts, we continue to carefully monitor hydrology and its projected effects on Lake Powell’s elevation to help guide our operational decisions. Reclamation is doing all we can to plan ahead to protect what we have for the communities that depend on us for water and hydropower.

Hydro Leader: Is the minimum power pool elevation the level of the turbines, or is it the level at which you would no longer have sufficient head to generate electricity?

March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Nicholas Williams: It’s the level at which we would no longer have sufficient submergence on the intake to the power plant. The submergence level we need is about 20 feet above the intakes. Below that, the water starts to form a vortex that can be damaging to the power generation equipment.

Hydro Leader: What effects would reduced hydropower generation have on utilities and power customers?

Nicholas Williams: We’re already seeing some of those negative effects. Our power is marketed through the Western Area Power Administration, specifically its Colorado River Storage Project Management Center. That is the agency that markets and holds contracts with the municipalities, utilities, cooperatives, and tribes that receive our power. It markets the power under a rate, and that rate increased by 11 percent in December 2021, largely because of the longevity of the drought. We had a stable rate through most of the drought up to this point, but now, with storage at the current levels and decreasing water volumes, the rate is being affected. We will have this higher rate for approximately 2 years. Beyond that, it will be determined by conditions and our projected generation at that time. The energy demand doesn’t go down, just our ability to supply that energy, so it has to be supplied from other sources. That has the potential to affect customers as well. Other sources might be more expensive or might put more strain on the entire grid.

Hydro Leader: What would be the effects on the grid in terms of power supply and ancillary services like black start?

Nicholas Williams: Hydropower provides firm power but also grid support services to support the transmission of that electricity in a safe, reliable manner. As the drought continues, those support services will continue to be affected. Glen Canyon does provide a black start resource. If we fall below minimum power pool, we will lose the ability to provide that support. I can’t really speak to the broader effects on the grid, but the drought will affect our ability to provide some of those services.

Hydro Leader: What is the best way to balance power generation and water supply for agricultural, residential, and industrial uses?

10 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: How is Reclamation working to ensure continued power generation at Colorado basin dams, including Glen Canyon?

Nicholas Williams: There are several different approaches that we’re working on to protect the critical elevations of Lake Powell, particularly the target elevation of 3,525 feet, which provides a 35‑foot buffer above the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet.

We’ve made changes to increase the efficiency of our power plants and continue to look for additional opportunities to make improvements. For example, at Glen Canyon Dam, from 2007 to 2015, we replaced all the turbine runners, which resulted in efficiency gains of more than 3 percent.

We are also exploring the feasibility of modifications to Glen Canyon Dam to allow it to produce power below the current minimum power pool elevation, perhaps as close as we can get to deadpool elevation. We are early in that process, but we’re entering studies to look at what we can do to ensure we can continue to generate power at Glen Canyon on all water that is released to meet obligations under the Colorado River Compact. Reclamation, the Colorado River basin states, tribes, stakeholders, partners, and the public are monitoring the situation on the Colorado River. We’re engaged together to protect the elevations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. That remains a top priority going forward.

Hydro Leader: Do you expect major changes in water use and power generation going forward?

Nicholas Williams: We’re seeing major changes in climate and changes in water and electricity use. I’d expect that we will continue to see changes in the policies that govern those uses. As for our facilities, hydropower is a small part of that energy generation portfolio, but I’d say it’s an important part. Hydropower punches above its weight class not just in terms of providing energy but in all the services it provides.

In the West, where our facilities are, we have a highly variable and limited water supply. There will continue to be changes, and we need to be able to adapt to them. H Nicholas Williams is manager of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Power Office for the Upper Colorado Basin Region. He can be contacted at nwilliams@usbr.gov.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

Nicholas Williams: That’s a difficult question to answer.

Reclamation must also factor in things like mitigating adverse impacts and protecting downstream natural, recreational, and cultural resources. We’re governed by what’s known as the Law of the River, a collection of agreements, compacts, and federal laws that govern the release and use of water on the Colorado River. Energy, agriculture, municipal, and environmental needs fluctuate, so we work closely with stakeholders to understand what

the needs are and try to achieve that balance. That balancing act is happening in collaboration with stakeholders and will continue to happen on the Colorado River in a variety of different forms and settings.

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The Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Lower Colorado Basin The distinctive “bathtub ring” pattern in Lake Mead is a visible demonstration of low water levels. In this 2018 picture, the water elevation is 1,088 feet—about 20 feet higher than it is today.

I

n the face of drought and a dwindling Colorado River, the job of balancing the needs of people, hydropower, and agriculture is more challenging than ever. In this interview, David Arend, Reclamation’s new deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Basin Region, talks with Hydro Leader about the effects the basin’s increasingly unpredictable hydrology have on the hydropower the region depends on.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

14 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the hydropower facilities that you oversee.

David Arend: I oversee 14 facilities. Three of them—Hoover, Parker, and Davis Dams—are owned, operated, and maintained by Reclamation. We also have 11 facilities that are owned by Reclamation but are maintained and operated by other entities, most of them by the Salt River Project.

In addition, there is one operated by the Central Arizona Project, one by the Imperial Irrigation District, and one by the Yuma County Water Users Association. The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is our power marketing agent; it schedules and distributes the power generated, assists with the contracts, and invoices the customers.

Hydro Leader: What effect is the Colorado basin drought having on Reclamation’s hydropower fleet?

David Arend: The drought has caused us to lose some capacity, especially because of the lower water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell and the resulting loss of head pressure.

The higher the head pressure, the more efficiently our turbines operate and the more we can generate per cubic foot per second of water going through the units. Additionally, as we conserve more water, we put less water through the units, which means lower generation capacity as well. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

David Arend: Right out of high school, I joined the navy and went into the Navy Nuclear Power Program, which started my background in power generation. I served 20 years as a navy nuke. Most of that time was spent on nuclear submarines, but I also did a couple of tours working with the naval reactors at Idaho National Laboratories. After retiring from the navy in 1996, I worked in the private sector for about 6 years before returning to federal service. I was hired at Hoover Dam as a power systems electrician and electrical foreman. After about a year and a half, I transferred downriver to become the facility manager at Davis Dam. Then, I served as Reclamation’s power compliance manager for about 6 years. After that, I became the Power Office chief for the Lower Colorado Basin Region. That position involves oversight of the operation and maintenance of all our federal power plants. We handle all the power contracts for generation, ensure our facilities maintain compliance with the reliability standards of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and its Western Electricity Coordinating Council, and coordinate the renewable energy

that is requested to come on to federal facilities and lands.

In December 2021, I was selected to be the deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Basin Region.

ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: To what degree is the drought already affecting the amount of power that you’re generating, and how might it continue drought affect generation?

David Arend: We did several studies and compared total generation from 1988 to 1991 as well as the average over the last 21 years, beginning when the drought started.

We’ve seen a reduction in power generation in the lower Colorado basin of about 10.8 percent over that period.

The costs of the operation and maintenance continue, so we saw an increase in the rates paid by our power customers. Hoover, Parker, and Davis Dams do not have appropriated funding, so our power customers, not the taxpayers, pay the bills. We try to keep our costs as low as we can. We’ve shifted some projects out to a later date.

Working with our power customers, we do everything we can to make our power an economically feasible product.

Going forward, we may see some additional increases in power customer rates. The size of those increases is difficult to predict, because Colorado basin hydrology is extremely unpredictable. We’ve made significant efforts to mitigate rate increases through efficiency gains, cost cutting, the pursuit of other sources of funding, and increasing our non-power-related revenues.

David Arend: For every megawatt (MW) that we don’t produce, customers have to get power from somewhere else.

WAPA, our marketing agent, goes out and gets the power for them on the market We’ve also changed when we generate power. With all the solar and wind coming online, there is a lot of energy available during the day, so we’ve actually shifted our generation back into the hours when energy costs are higher. It doesn’t matter whether we generate at 10:00 a.m. or 10:00 p.m.—our costs are the same.

Hydro Leader: How many hours per day do you generally generate power?

David Arend: We’re always generating some amount, because we have to continue flow down the river and maintain certain minimum flows. How much we generate at any given time varies from day to day and from season to season. It also depends on water orders. When there’s less water demand, there’s less generation. Especially in the wintertime, we take advantage of that to take units offline for maintenance and upgrades.

Hydro Leader: How does the situation of the lower basin differ from that of the upper?

David Arend: The two basins have different hydrologies and sometimes different customers, but overall, we look at the Colorado River basin as one basin. We’re working with the Upper Colorado Basin Region to tackle the situation together, because in the long run, whatever affects one region affects the other. If Glen Canyon Dam in the upper basin were to reach a minimum power pool, that would further reduce the amount of water coming into Lake Mead.

Hydro Leader: What water levels would most seriously affect hydropower generation in the lower basin?

David Arend: As the levels go down in the lake, there are fewer efficiencies and more cavitation, and we get less generation per unit. But the real red line for Lake Mead would be our minimum power pool elevation of 950 feet. At that point, Hoover Dam would not be able to generate any more power.

That’s not to say that we couldn’t still move water through Hoover Dam and downstream, because we could bypass the units and allow water to go down the stream a different way.

The hydrology studies that we’ve done show little, if any, chance of us reaching that point in the next several years, but again, we’ve seen the hydrology change very quickly.

A wide-head turbine runner is delivered to Hoover Dam in 2015. The installation of wide-head turbines at five of the units at Hoover Dam from 2012 to 2017 increased the efficiency of each turbine by 3 percent.

Hydro Leader: Aside from potential rate increases, what other effects might a reduction in hydropower generation have on your power customers?

David Arend: That is a tough question, because there is no one best way. We’re working our stakeholders—the states, Native American tribes, agricultural communities,

hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: What is the best way to balance power generation and water supply for agricultural, residential, and industrial use?

March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT and irrigation districts—to find solutions. In December, we launched the 500+ Plan, a partnership that will invest $200 million in conservation efforts to add another 500,000 acre-feet to Lake Mead each year for the next 2 years. The Drought Contingency Plan that’s been in place for several years has allowed us to create what is called intentionally created surplus to help maintain water in Lake Mead. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will create additional opportunities to invest in infrastructure improvements and conservation. While residential and industrial uses are important, agricultural use is also important to the entire country. In addition to growing our food, agriculture creates jobs and supports communities.

We can ramp up faster, we have less overshoot, and it improves our transitions in and out of motoring. Motoring refers to the fact that when we’re not generating, we’re actually running the unit as a motor. The unit is online, but it’s not generating power. That allows us to immediately start opening wicket gates and to bring that unit up more quickly to respond to any changes or issues that might be on the grid. It also allows us to provide some reactive energy to help stabilize the grid with voltage stabilization. One good thing about hydropower facilities, which is also true of large steam plants, is that their large generators have a lot of spinning inertia, which helps to stabilize the frequency control or speed control of the grid itself.

Hydro Leader: How is Reclamation working to ensure continued power generation at the lower Colorado basin dams?

Hydro Leader: What can you tell us about recent snowfall and its likely effect on the year’s water supplies?

David Arend: The Drought Contingency Plan, the 500+ Plan, and the intentionally created surplus all help to bank water in Lake Mead, which helps ensure that we can still generate later on. We’ve also completed several modifications or upgrades to Hoover Dam that have increased our efficiency by 83–87 percent since 2007.

We’ve reclaimed approximately 120 MW of capacity and approximately 1,600–1,700 megawatt-hours per year in energy.

For example, we installed what are called wide-head turbines at five of the units at Hoover Dam from 2012 to 2017, increasing our efficiency by 3 percent per turbine. We also have what are called over-stroke wicket gates. About half of the 17 units have already been modified to allow the wicket gates to open past their historical 100 percent opening. That allows more water to pass through the gates and enter the turbine, allowing us to reclaim about 5 percent of lost capacity for each unit. I know these sound like small numbers, but when you add them up, it starts making a real difference in the value and cost of our power. We also installed thinner stainless-steel wicket gates. This reduces leakage past the gates and allows more water to enter and pass through the turbine, reclaiming an additional 5 percent of lost capacity for each unit. Also, as our units age, we overhaul and rewind them, replacing the old copper windings and steel. We’ve actually been able to increase the efficiency of our units by several percent by replumbing, changing out facing plates, and tightening clearances on the seals. At Davis Dam, one of the units is going to be rewound in the next fiscal year. That’s going to increase the unit’s capacity from 48 MW to at least 52 MW, so with the same water, we’ll get another 4–5 MW to use—about a 10 percent increase.

Finally, one of the last things was unit control modernizations. All the units at Hoover, Davis, and Parker Dams went through controls upgrades. That consisted of new protection systems, pilot excitations, digital governors, and digital unit controls. That increased our efficiency by another 2 percent and allowed us to use a new operational algorithm to dispatch the units more efficiently. The new algorithm makes use of better responsiveness and performance ramping.

David Arend: Snowfall in Colorado actually has two parts: what falls on the western slope and what falls on the eastern slope. We need the snow to fall on the western slope to affect our area, because when the snowpack melts, that’s what flows into the Colorado River. Earlier this winter, we had some good snowstorms, but they were followed by one of the driest Januarys in a long time. Fortunately, it remained cold, so the snowpack is not melting into the ground as quickly as we expected. As a result, the snowpack is still slightly above average. We did see some snow coming into Utah, which also helps feed into the river. While we saw some early positive signs, the last month or so has counteracted them. This shows you the volatility of the weather patterns. It makes it that much harder to predict where we’re going to be moving forward and how this will affect us. We are hoping for as much snow as we can get, especially on the western slope.

David Arend: Right now, the hydrology modeling presents a bleak picture, but it’s hard to predict going forward, especially past the next few years. I can say for certain that we are hard at work looking at every possible solution and collaborating with the states, the tribes, and the agricultural community. We’re continuing to look at every option we have. We do modeling on a continual basis now, looking for every option for the worst-case, best-case, and most probable scenarios. By working together, we’re going to develop the best possible plans. Much has been done already, but there’s still a lot more to do. H David Arend is the deputy regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region. He can be contacted at darend@usbr.gov.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.

16 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: What is your outlook on the future?

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Light Up Navajo: Powering Homes in the Navajo Nation

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he Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) operates electricity, communications, and other utilities for the 27,000‑square-mile Navajo Nation. The 2019 mutual aid project Light Up Navajo and 2020 funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act brought power to some of the approximately 14,000 homes on the Navajo Nation that lacked electricity. Hydro Leader spoke with Government and Public Affairs Manager Deenise Becenti about the success of that effort and about the next phase, Light Up Navajo 3, which is slated to start in April 2022.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Deenise Becenti: I’m the government and public affairs manager for NTUA and handle all of NTUA’s communications. I’ve been with NTUA for more than 20 years.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce NTUA.

Twenty-eight communities from 13 states sent lineworker crews to the Navajo Nation in 2019 to connect homes to the electrical grid during the initial Light Up Navajo program in 2019.

Deenise Becenti: NTUA was established by Navajo leaders in 1959. They created it to address utility access in the Navajo Nation, which is 27,000 square miles in size, roughly the size of the state of West Virginia. They believed that a Navajo-owned utility would best meet the needs of the Navajo people. Since then, NTUA has grown into a selfsustaining, not-for-profit, tribally owned enterprise. It is among a dozen or so tribal entities or enterprises owned by the Navajo Nation, all of which operate separately from the Navajo Nation government umbrella. At NTUA, we handle the business operations and oversee the maintenance of our electric, communications, natural gas, water, wastewater, and renewable energy generation utilities, including off-grid residential solar services for the Navajo people. In addition to providing multiutility services, we are here to help generate a new economy, to create employment opportunities, to keep utility rates stable, and to improve the health and welfare of residents throughout the Navajo Nation.

Hydro Leader: In addition to the power generated on the reservation, does the utility also buy power from outside producers?

18 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NTUA.

Lineworkers strategize during Light Up Navajo in 2019.

Deenise Becenti: We do. Since we established our own utility-scale solar farm in 2019, a large portion of our electric utility comes from our 55‑megawatt solar facility, the first of its kind here in the Navajo Nation. It was built in two phases, with the intent to demonstrate that the Navajo Nation can build, develop, and maintain a utility-scale renewable energy facility. We also purchase power from

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Lineworkers set up electrical infrastructure.

outside the Navajo Nation. Right now, 58 percent of our power is generated from renewable energy sources.

Hydro Leader: What percentage of your power is generated by hydropower?

Deenise Becenti: In 2019, 40 percent of our power was sourced from renewable energy sources—both hydro and solar power. In 2020, when the second phase came online, it went to 57 percent, so about half the power that is distributed here in the Navajo Nation comes from renewable energy sources.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the Light Up Navajo program?

Deenise Becenti: Light Up Navajo was created in 2018.

It developed from a partnership between NTUA and the American Public Power Association (APPA), a national organization that community-owned utilities are part of.

Utilities send their crews to locations where natural disasters have occured to help restore power to those regions. Our general manager, Walter W. Haase, is the former chairman of the APPA. During his presentations at conferences and at national meetings, he has talked about his own utility and described the challenges that we face daily and the thousands of residents who were without electric power.

People started coming up to him to ask what they could do to help. They were surprised that a region within the United States had 14,000 homes without electricity.

In 2019, we launched Light Up Navajo as a pilot project.

Twenty-eight communities from 13 states sent their crews here for a concentrated 6‑week effort to connect as many homes as possible. We had utilities from Arkansas, California, Delaware, Illinois, and Utah, as well as from neighboring utilities. Together, 138 line workers extended power to 233 homes and extended 50 miles of line. Because that effort was so successful, in 2020, we were planning to host Light Up Navajo 2. Of course, the pandemic changed all that. After the pandemic canceled our plans for Light Up Navajo 2, those families got connected under the CARES Act, which hydroleadermagazine.com

provided funds from the federal government to combat COVID‑19. Our utility crews went to work in August 2021, and in 6 weeks, they were able to connect over 700 homes.

Hydro Leader: Will Light Up Navajo 3 take place in 2022?

Deenise Becenti: Yes; it will start in April. Right now, our teams are busily preparing these projects—getting rightsof-way clearances and land clearances. A lot of these homes may not have proper house wiring, so we’re getting those homes prepared. That way, when the Light Up Navajo teams arrive, they can immediately start work to connect homes to the main power grid.

Hydro Leader: Is there anything you would like to add?

Deenise Becenti: They call Light Up Navajo mutual aid without the storm. Many of the line workers who come here have an eye-opening experience, because many of them come from communities where electricity is everywhere. They’ve connected newly built homes, but they haven’t connected homes where families had been living for years. To see the heartfelt gratitude of families who were waiting years for electricity demonstrates just how meaningful this project is.

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future of NTUA? Deenise Becenti: Our vision is to continue moving forward with the vision that was established in 1959: to be a utility business that is Navajo owned, Navajo operated, and that truly meets the needs of the Navajo Nation. Since then, we’ve grown beyond expectations, but our commitment to that vision hasn’t wavered. H

Deenise Becenti is the government and public affairs manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.

March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Jaclyn Gnusti of Anchor QEA: Solving Sedimentation Woes

Anchor QEA performed construction management for a sediment excavation operation at Phoenix Lake, an 80‑acre water storage reservoir in Sonora, California. The lake was drained to allow the contractor to use land equipment, such as excavators and dozers, to remove sediment.

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hen runoff carries sediment into lakes and reservoirs, it can build up and eventually dramatically reduce water capacity. That poses a threat to important sources of drinking water, recreation, wildlife habitat, and even flood control. Hydro Leader talked to Jaclyn Gnusti, the senior managing engineer at Anchor QEA, about how her company tackles the tough problems caused by sedimentation through a variety of services that include aid with geotechnical and environmental evaluations, planning and permitting, engineering solutions, funding, construction implementation, and long-term maintenance.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

20 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Anchor QEA. Jaclyn Gnusti: Anchor QEA is an environmental science and engineering consulting firm that has been around for over 20 years and has clients across the United States. We work with our clients to plan, design, and manage nearshore and aquatic-based projects from the initial planning, site investigation, and feasibility evaluation stages through design, plans and specifications, construction management, permit compliance, and environmental monitoring.

Hydro Leader: What causes sedimentation in lakes and reservoirs, and why is it a problem for water managers?

Jaclyn Gnusti: In reservoirs or lakes, sediment accumulates over time, creating a multitude of problems. Sediment can reduce the capacity of a water body, affecting its ability to serve its flood control or irrigation and emergency water supply uses. It also creates water quality issues: The reduction in depth or the introduction of nutrients or contaminants affect the water quality and can cause nuisance vegetation, such as toxic algae, to grow. The toxins can then interfere with municipal, irrigation, or household uses or hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANCHOR QEA.

Jaclyn Gnusti: I wanted to be an engineer starting as a kid, and I knew that I wanted to get involved in water issues because my dad was a farmer. We dealt with everything from droughts and water rights to saltwater intrusion. When I started working, I unintentionally became involved with dredging. Now, a couple of decades of experience later, in my current position as the senior managing engineer with Anchor QEA, I am able to combine the environmental and water aspects of many projects with my dredging experience to help project owners, including some from the agricultural community, resolve water and sediment problems. We help create more capacity for irrigation

water and even provide dredged sediment as a beneficial resource for agricultural lands.

ADVERTISEMENT affect recreational opportunities, for example by causing swimming and fishing to be temporarily banned.

Something we’re seeing a lot more of, especially with aging infrastructure, is that sedimentation can affect existing dams.

Many of these dams weren’t built with sediment loads from upstream developments or even natural erosion in mind, and they weren’t built with a mechanism to remove the sediment.

As sediment builds up on one side of the dam, it can create instability. Removing sediment may also create unanticipated structural problems, because the dam may have started to rely on the sediment for structural stability as it settles over time.

And if a dam wasn’t designed with management in mind, there is often little space to get dredging or other equipment in to remove the sediment. We’re seeing issues like that all over the country. As problems with sedimentation near dams grows, the need for creative solutions also grows.

Hydro Leader: Why is this issue worsening? Are things like climatic changes and wildfires factors?

Jaclyn Gnusti: I think a combination of factors is leading to sedimentation and water quality issues. Runoff from wildfires or urbanization can introduce contaminants into a lake, where they accumulate and eventually affect water quality. There is also a lot of new science out there, so we’re paying more attention to potentially toxic or nutrient-laden sediment, how it affects the environment, and how we need to clean it up. Finding funding to address these issues is always a problem, though. These are no easy solutions. and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Hydro Leader: Where does Anchor QEA come into this? If a dam owner or operator has a sedimentation issue, how do you address it?

Jaclyn Gnusti: We can fit into any part of the project identification or solution. Our hydraulic engineers can determine the sediment load, we have a geotechnical department for dam and slope stability, and we have scientists who perform sediment characterization. Our civil engineers design plans for sediment removal, and we have a dedicated group for construction management. Another specialized area of ours is environmental planning, which helps clients comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and other state or regional environmental regulations. Throughout the country, we’re able to prepare the necessary localized regulatory documentation and coordinate the acquisition of permits. I think the biggest thing that owners underestimate when they have a sediment management project is probably the time the regulatory process requires and the steps involved.

One of our principal Anchor QEA engineers, Michael Whelan, has made numerous technical presentations on sediment management in lakes and reservoirs to groups such as the Western Dredging Association and Denver Water. hydroleadermagazine.com

In each of his presentations, he hits on all the important topics we can help with—the identification of the problem and its sources, geotechnical and environmental evaluations, planning and permitting, engineering solutions, funding, construction implementation, and long-term maintenance.

Hydro Leader: Does construction management mean that Anchor QEA works alongside a construction company and directs what it does?

Jaclyn Gnusti: No; in this role, instead of directing contractors, we usually want to refer them back to the plans and specs, which in some cases we’ve developed ourselves. We make sure that the contractors comply with all regulatory requirements. If they run into a problem, we could help them come up with a solution that complies with those requirements, but all means and methods are the contractors’. We can do everything from full construction management—in which we are on site on a daily basis to act as the owner’s representative—to limited support, which means we only oversee the regulatory submittals and review the progress reports and the pay requests from the contractor. There is an array of services we can provide, depending on the type of project and the type of client.

Hydro Leader: Would you give us an example of a sedimentation project you’ve worked on?

Jaclyn Gnusti: We were called in to address sedimentation issues at Temescal Lake, a 13‑acre artificial lake in northern Oakland that was constructed in the late 1800s. It is owned and managed by the East Bay Regional Park District and used for recreation with some capacity for flood control.

When it was built, the lake had depths of 60–80 feet, but now it is less than 15 feet deep. That’s because of the rapid urbanization of Oakland, Berkeley, and the surrounding areas.

Not only is the lake filling in, but the sediment is pulling in all the toxins from development runoff, and it has blooms of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Because of that, the district has had to shut the lake to pets and restrict fishing.

We were brought in to do a feasibility study, to identify the problem, and to propose some solutions. We came up with a twofold solution. First, we recommended a mass sediment removal project for the immediate restoration of the water body. Second, because that is only going to work for so long before the problem returns, we also presented some proposals for long-term maintenance.

We initially collected some exploratory sediment cores and performed lab testing to determine the chemical makeup of the sediment. Then, we performed a geotechnical assessment of the existing dam. With this information, we came up with three solutions for restoring the lake: dredging, installing treated wetlands, and creating sediment catchment basins.

The dredging solution included restoring the water depth to about 30–35 feet by removing about 180,000 cubic yards of March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT sediment. The purpose of the treated wetlands solution would be to remove the nutrients from effluent or runoff before they run into the lake. Finally, the purpose of expanding some of the existing sediment basins, or forebays, would be to intercept the sediment before it enters the lake. It’s a lot more cost effective to remove the sediment from those basins, because land-based equipment can be used rather than dredges in the lake itself. The dredging solution was complex: We looked at different dredging options, such as hydraulic or mechanical dredges, and at geotextile tubes to dewater the sediment once it was removed. We also looked at possible areas in which to process and store the sediment. Could we leave it on site and modify some of the park features, or would we have to truck it to another location? Using a landfill is usually the last resort because of the cost, but we considered that option, too. We wrote a feasibility study, and now the district has enough information to move forward—first, to obtain funding, and second, to plan the next steps, which would be permitting and environmental investigations.

Another project we worked on was construction management for a sediment excavation operation at Phoenix Lake, an 80‑acre water storage reservoir in Sonora, California.

We came in to oversee the contractor’s compliance with permitting regulations and design. Managed by the Tuolumne Utilities District (TUD), Phoenix Lake is a primary drinking source for over 10,000 residents. It’s also the primary fill source for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection helicopter operators and provides habitat for migratory birds and aquatic wildlife.

The CEQA document determination was that draining the lake was the best option for sediment removal. That would allow workers to use land equipment, such as excavators and dozers, instead of using traditional dredging equipment. Even though it was a dry summer and the contractor had installed over 80 ground pumps to keep the water at bay, the contractor couldn’t access about one-fifth of the project area because it was too wet. In this project, TUD was able to collaborate with an adjacent landowner and deposit the sediment in an orchard. That really cut down on transportation costs, because this much sediment might require over 10,000 truck trips. Additional tasks included overseeing habitat surveys and fish relocation during lake draining.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us more about what makes permitting so challenging?

22 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: You mentioned that older structures may not have been designed with a mechanism for removing sediment or even a sufficient pathway to do so. How does awareness of these issues affect how new structures might be designed today?

Jaclyn Gnusti: We make sure that any new reservoir or lake will be as easy to maintain as possible, so we include things like forebays, or basins, that can be easily and routinely cleared out in a manner that is much more cost effective than dredging. It is also important to make sure that there are lay-down areas or open space that can be used for equipment access or sediment processing, so we recommend not building out the entire perimeter of the lake.

Hydro Leader: Is there anything you would like to add?

Jaclyn Gnusti: I would emphasize that one of the most important things is to engage early with the regulatory agencies, because that really can direct the path of the project, its cost, and the different types of solutions that can be implemented. H

Jaclyn Gnusti is the senior managing engineer at Anchor QEA. For more on Anchor QEA, visit anchorqea.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANCHOR QEA.

Jaclyn Gnusti: As I mentioned, the regulatory process can vary by location and water body. Nearly every project requires some type of environmental act approval. In California, we have CEQA, and there’s NEPA on a national level. For CEQA, you first need to have a local sponsor or agency. If the owner is a public entity, such as a county or city, it can be the responsible agency, but if it is a private entity, such as a homeowners association, it needs to engage a public entity. Typically, maintenance projects are exempt from CEQA, but any type of large-scale project falls under

it, and can be anywhere on the scale from receiving a mitigated negative declaration, which is a declaration that there is no environmental impact, to requiring mitigation measures or an environmental impact report. Those impact reports are more in-depth and can take months or years to complete. They might require environmental studies, such as habitat surveys or sediment testing. For some projects, you also have to conduct cultural resource surveys covering potential effects on historical or archaeological resources.

Then, there is a public commenting period during which members of the general public, public agencies, and adjacent landowners can provide input on the project. After that, there’s an array of permits to obtain, which can include both state and federal approvals. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for example, has to approve work in certain wetlands or anything tied to federal waters. Sometimes, local agencies get involved, too. It really varies from state to state and from region to region.

As you can imagine, gathering all that information and getting approvals to move forward takes time. The smartest thing to do at the start of a project is to develop a flow chart of events so the planning team is on the same track and there are not a lot of surprises coming down the road.

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Brad Cavallo of Cramer Fish Sciences: Taking a Second Look at Dams, River Temperatures, and Salmon and Washington. I lead one of the company’s Californiabased offices. I started my career as a biologist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Later, I transferred to the California Department of Water Resources, which is responsible for managing and providing water for urban and agricultural uses. In 2006, I made the transition to independent scientific consulting by joining Cramer Fish Sciences, and today, I do a little bit of everything related to water and fisheries throughout the western United States, but I mainly focus on California’s Central Valley.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us more about the work of Cramer Fish Sciences?

Brad Cavallo: Cramer Fish Sciences is a private-sector scientific consulting firm that focuses on fish issues and water resource management. Many environmental consultants do environmental compliance work, which involves producing analyses that are needed to comply with environmental laws. Our firm does some of that, but we are more focused on research that helps resolve water management conflicts.

We develop methods and conduct studies to try to improve our understanding of how these systems work. Frequently, our work culminates in peer-reviewed publications, thus improving the understanding and acceptance of our findings.

While our work is fairly West Coast focused, much of it is relevant to other regions of the country and the world— anywhere there is a need for applied science to conserve aquatic ecosystems while still taking into account human demands for water and land.

The North Fork of the American River is a Wild and Scenic unregulated river. Summer water temperatures in the North Fork are likely too warm to support spring-run Chinook salmon.

B

rad Cavallo, a principal scientist at Cramer Fish Sciences, is challenging assumptions that hydropower facilities have an inevitable negative effect on water temperatures and therefore on salmon. He advocates the idea that effects and benefits depend on how dams are operated—and calls for researchers to rely on data and analyses that can accurately account for the thermal effects of river regulation.

Brad Cavallo: I’m a fisheries biologist and principal scientist with Cramer Fish Sciences, an independent scientific consulting company working in California, Idaho, Oregon,

24 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Brad Cavallo: Delta Currents is a blog that was launched a year ago. I was invited to be one of the regular contributors.

I have always had a lot of thoughts about controversial fishery management issues that aren’t typically addressed in peer-reviewed journal publications or by environmental journalists’ reporting. Delta Currents provides a forum to reach a wider audience and share insights about how aquatic ecosystems function and how they are affected by human activities and facilities, such as water diversions, hydropower facilities, hatcheries, and harvesting.

Hydro Leader: Who publishes Delta Currents?

Brad Cavallo: It is affiliated with the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management, an entity that is hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRAD CAVALLO.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Delta Currents.

ADVERTISEMENT committed to collaborating to resolve water and fish resource conflicts in the San Francisco Bay, its rivers, and its estuary.

We hope to be read by biologists, agency managers, and policymakers from Sacramento to Washington, DC. The objective of the center is to identify, generate, and interpret scientific information that can contribute to innovative and beneficial resource management. The organization emerged to respond to a situation in which many people felt that the policies that were being developed for water management and fish species conservation were not always informed by the best available scientific information. We try to help provide and disseminate that information. The center’s website has an archive of publications on topics like delta smelt, adaptive management, and Chinook salmon in the Sacramento Delta.

Hydro Leader: Recently, you wrote a blogpost on Delta Currents titled “Misunderstanding Influence of Dams and Droughts on the Availability of Cold Water to Support Central Valley Salmon and Steelhead.” What led you to look into this particular issue?

The Middle Fork American River is hydro regulated but provides water temperatures more suitable for cold-water fish species.

Brad Cavallo: This is a topic that I’ve been working on in various contexts for quite a while. Recently, I ran across an article in the online journal PLOS One that purported to have examined water temperatures in California rivers and found that rivers downstream of dams performed poorly for coldwater fish species. Press releases associated with the PLOS One publication led to news articles with inflammatory and misleading titles like “Deadbeat Dams and Their Impact on Cold Water Ecosystems.” The publication was being used to promote the idea that dams are really terrible for temperature management, but the publication’s analysis really did not support such a conclusion, and I felt a professional obligation to respond. After reviewing the publication carefully, I submitted a lengthy letter to the editors of PLOS One explaining in considerable detail serious problems with the paper. However, scientific journals are typically reluctant to publish corrections or retractions to papers they have already decided to publish.

I wrote a blog post so that others could see for themselves the serious problems I found in my review of the PLOS One article.

can be damaging consequences for the reproductive success of the salmon. There are many ways that water temperatures can affect the fish, but spawning and egg incubation are particularly important.

In the blog post, I acknowledge and discuss the negative effects dams can have on migratory fish, such as salmon and steelhead. The thing I took issue with in the PLOS One article was how the authors portrayed the effect of dams on flow and temperature management. Managing flows and temperatures can be challenging, but a lot depends on how the dam is being operated and what our basis for comparison is. The premise of the article was that dams just can’t provide the kind of temperatures salmon need to be successful, and furthermore, that temperatures in natural river systems—or unregulated systems, meaning those without dams—are always better. The paper portrayed dams as failures in terms in providing suitable thermal regimes, but the analyses described in the publication simply did not support those conclusions.

PHOTO BY SHANNON1, LICENSED UNDER CC BY-SA 4.0.

Hydro Leader: What were some of your concerns about the journal article?

Brad Cavallo: The article seemed to address Chinook salmon and steelhead, species that people are quite concerned about in California. Many populations of these species are listed under the Endangered Species Act. In California, considering its relatively hot and dry climate, there are many challenges associated with managing water temperatures and flows to allow these species to persist and thrive. Naturally, there are many variables playing into such temperatures and flows. One of the most significant is providing cold enough water for the fish to spawn successfully, particularly Chinook salmon. If the temperatures aren’t cold enough for eggs to survive, there hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: What was your response to that claim?

Brad Cavallo: First, I considered what analyses would be needed to objectively evaluate how dams perform with regard to thermal regime relative to unregulated rivers and outlined the approach. It includes identifying and then contrasting thermal regimes observed in rivers that represent regulated and unregulated situations while accounting for or controlling for factors such as elevation, shading, stream gradient, and local weather. There’s actually some great work on these types of studies in the published literature. I described the sort of analysis that would be necessary to test the hypotheses that had been reported in the article as firm conclusions, as though an appropriate analysis had already been done.

March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Then, I took a look at a few systems that I’m familiar with in California, just to demonstrate that when you do look at the data more closely, you see patterns quite different from the ones reported in the article. For example, the North Fork of the American River was described as having cold temperatures because it is an unregulated system. The authors apparently didn’t really understand that water temperatures at the site they evaluated are heavily and beneficially influenced by hydropower operations in the Middle Fork of American River. Without hydropower operations on the Middle Fork American River, water temperatures at the authors’ reference point would be warmer, not colder. So the authors had misclassified the North Fork American River as unregulated. I found many other examples of rivers that had been misclassified. Another big problem with the article was that it considered few sites at intermediate elevations of California rivers, where Chinook salmon and steelhead were most abundant historically. A newer publication did look at such sites in two California rivers, finding that hydropower-regulated segments of these rivers provided more suitable water temperatures for the reintroduction of spring-run Chinook salmon than unregulated rivers. It was gratifying to see that, as it is exactly the kind of analysis the PLOS One article had failed to provide.

Hydro Leader: Is the bottom line here that you can’t just make a blanket statement that dams have a negative effect on migratory species and that they might even have a positive influence?

Brad Cavallo: Yes; dams can indeed have a positive influence on water temperature, and I think that’s the central theme behind many of the topics we write about in Delta Currents. We make a genuine effort to point out the importance of being scientifically rigorous when approaching such questions. We also strive to showcase the importance of letting the data guide us to the truth. Unfortunately, today there seems to be a pattern emerging in publications that suggests that the authors may have preconceived ideas about the right answer and then gravitate toward the interpretation of their data that supports that conclusion. It’s important for us all to be willing to critically evaluate our work and the work of others and to challenge findings that don’t line up with the evidence.

Brad Cavallo: The key is to consider how you approach these kinds of problems and to maintain a degree of skepticism when making comparisons and judgments.

26 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Hydro Leader: What can dam owners and operators take away from this conversation? Are there practices they can embrace or improve upon that will contribute to ensuring that cooler waters flow through their systems during run times?

Brad Cavallo: I think so. My core advice to operators and waters users is to be attentive to these kinds of issues, to look into them, and not just to let them slide by. The regulatory community wants to help fish, but too often, there is an overreaction that leads it to quickly accept a proposed solution without carefully evaluating it.

Sometimes, momentum builds, and then policies begin to be implemented that may not only impede your ability to carry out your essential operations but may not even help fish in the way the policy is intended to. We all need to be willing to check the science, to engage in the process, and to better inform the debate so that we ultimately find the best solution. Once flawed findings become embedded in the regulatory framework or the scientific literature, they are really hard to dislodge.

Hydro Leader: What role do you see Delta Currents playing going forward?

Brad Cavallo: The idea behind Delta Currents is for it to provide a place to present scientific information to inform policy decisions about how we manage California water resources. My writing and research tend to focus on how we achieve better results for salmon conservation. We want to help the salmon, yet we still need to be able to use water, so there are tradeoffs, and it’s our responsibility as scientists to guide policymakers to strike an effective balance. Delta Currents serves as a platform for that dialogue. We’d like to have a positive effect in the domain of California water resource management and ensure that such decisions are being informed by rigorous science. That will allow us to achieve conservation outcomes for the species while also allowing for reliable consumptive or hydropower use of water. H

Brad Cavallo is a fisheries biologist and principal scientist at Cramer Fish Sciences. He can be reached at bcavallo@fishsciences.net. The Delta Currents blog can be found at calwatercenter.org/posts. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRAD CAVALLO.

Hydro Leader: With those thoughts in mind, is it possible that your findings with regard to salmonids in California might be applicable to other species in this or other river systems?

Every system has its own issues, species, and management challenges. But yes, I think these concepts are broadly applicable as a starting point for addressing problems with water resource management.

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5 Planned advocacy programming, such as our Hill Visits, gives the waterpower industry the opportunity to raise its voice and educate policymakers at the White House, Capitol Hill and Federal agencies.

Make it a powerful week!

Join us in Washington D.C. from April 5-7 to connect, learn and impact waterpower policy.

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Tom Osborn: Working With Irrigators to Increase Energy Efficiency

In this photo, taken at McNary Dam, the difference between the new 300-watt LEDs in the foreground and the old 1,000-watt high-intensity discharge fixtures in the background is visible. This change represents a huge energy and labor savings, and the lighting is much improved.

I

n the 40 years since Congress directed the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to meet growing energy needs through renewables and efficiency, the agency has saved 2,350 average megawatts (MW) through energy efficiency programs. BPA is a federal power marking agency that markets and transmits power from the Pacific Northwest federal dams and one nuclear power plant to more than 130 public utilities, including co-ops, rural electric associations, municipalities, and public utility districts.

BPA helps irrigation districts and other irrigators conduct energy audits and take advantage of incentive programs. Hydro Leader spoke with BPA energy engineer Tom Osborn about how, when it comes to energy cost savings, less is indeed more.

the Pacific Northwest. We market our power to publicly owned utilities. Our power also comes from our two wind farms; one 1,150 MW nuclear power plant; and the Federal Columbia River Power System, which is made up of 31 hydroelectric projects in the Columbia River basin.

The utilities to which we market wholesale electrical power include cooperatives, rural electric associations, municipalities, and public utility districts. We have about 130 customers of those types.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Tom Osborn: Over 90 percent. The precise figure depends on whether the nuclear power plant is scheduled for an outage in a given year and how much water we have available in snowpack.

28 | HYDRO LEADER | October 2021

Hydro Leader: You work primarily with irrigation districts and other irrigators. Where does their power come from?

Tom Osborn: The irrigation districts have access to Reclamation reserve power. The irrigators purchase their power from local utilities. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF BPA.

Tom Osborn: I’ve been with BPA for over 30 years. I am currently in our energy efficiency group, working with irrigation-related energy efficiency projects. I work with irrigators, both large and small, and with irrigation districts, some of which irrigate over 200,000 acres. I also work with our federal partners, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. BPA is the power marketing agency for federal hydropower resources here in

Hydro Leader: What percentage of your power comes from hydropower generation?

ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: Please tell us about BPA’s efficiency programs.

Tom Osborn: The BPA energy efficiency effort started in 1980, when Congress passed the Northwest Power Act. That legislation directed BPA to look at its hydropower, coal, and nuclear system portfolio. It specifically called out wind, solar, and energy efficiency. Energy efficiency gets a credit of 10 percent in our cost calculations. For instance, if we’re considering adding a new combustion turbine power plant to the generation portfolio, power from which costs 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, or energy efficiency, which costs 5½ cents a kilowatt-hour, the 10 percent benefit on the cost for the energy efficiency would make it the more affordable option. But we have to be certain of these energy savings and know when they produce the savings!

We have about $60 million per year in our budget and our revenue forecast set aside for an energy efficiency program.

We have programs for residential customers that support the installation of heat pumps, new windows, and smart thermostats. We have programs for residential housing and commercial buildings, which deal primarily with lighting; insulation; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); and thermostats. We have a program for industrial plants that is currently run by a third party that takes a look at the entire process of producing french fries, pizza pockets, dehydrated onions, and so on and recommends more-efficient equipment or processes. We also have energy efficiency programs to address agriculture, which primarily concern irrigation. For some of the utilities we serve, 70 percent of their sales are irrigation related, so it’s really important for them to have incentive programs to help their irrigators become more energy efficient. We also budget $2.5 million for our Energy Smart Reserved Power (ESRP) Program.

The largest dam in the United States, Grand Coulee Dam, was built ostensibly for irrigation purposes. There was not much demand for the electricity at the time. Part of the motivation for the project, which was carried out by Reclamation, was to reclaim 1,000,000 acres of desert land and convert it to irrigated fertile land where crops could be grown—alfalfa, flowers, fruit trees, grapes, onions, potatoes, watermelon, wheat, and anything else that grows. When the dam was built, power was reserved for irrigation district purposes on the wholesale side. The John W. Keys III pumping plant lifts massive amounts of water out of the Columbia River to a high scabland basin at the end of which the federal government built a dam, creating Banks Lake. That created the Columbia Basin Project (CBP). We work with the irrigation districts on lining canals, replacing earthen ditches with pipelines, and building more-efficient pump stations. BPA provides an energy efficiency incentive through our $2.5 million ESRP program, which also helps reduce station service loads. Reducing losses can reduce irrigation districts’ pumping needs.

The dams are owned by Reclamation and the Army Corps, but BPA has the rights to the power output. They hydroleadermagazine.com

generate their own power, and it flows onto the electrical grid. They use some of the electricity to safely operate the dams themselves. Recently, we’ve been going back to the dams and looking at the power substations to reduce the station service load. A particular dam might be generating 500 MW, but it might consume 2–4 MW of station service for its own operations. If we can reduce the station service load required by lighting, fans, pumps, and compressed air usage by 50 percent, then more electricity is available to the grid. The same is true of power substations: they don’t have a separate utility bringing in the electricity; it comes from the substation itself and is typically unmetered load.

About 8 years ago, BPA went into all the dam projects, updated the lighting, and updated the compressed air system with new variable-speed drive air compressors.

We’ve helped upgrade HVAC and lighting, especially LED exterior security and high-bay lighting, and we’re putting in T8 LED lights. Every 8 years, I go back and look for new opportunities. We went from T12 fluorescent lamps to T8s, and now we are moving toward direct-wire T8 LED lamps. We also looked at updating the chillers that are used to cool the oil for the big generators, but we didn’t provide any incentives for that, as they were already fairly efficient.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about some of your irrigation-focused programs?

Tom Osborn: Our irrigation energy efficiency programs are not just for irrigation districts, but also for utility irrigation customers. In the Pacific Northwest, farms may have a pump station to pump water out of the ground, out of a creek, or out of the Columbia or Snake Rivers. We work with them on variable-frequency drives (VFDs) and moreefficient pumps. Some of their pumps have been in service for 50 years and are rebuilt, machined, or rewelded every 5 years. After a while, their efficiency begins to decline by 1 percent every 5 years. Recently, BPA created a simple incentive program to help irrigators invest in new, moreefficient pumps that can use the same motors and discharge heads. That’s been a popular measure.

There are also advanced irrigation strategies to help reduce the amount of water farmers need to apply. When I first started working in the irrigation sector, impact sprinklers were placed at the top of center pivots and sprayed water 10 feet above the crops. Sometimes that’s okay, as in the case of corn. But for some crops, such as alfalfa, beets, and onions, a lot of water evaporates before it hits the ground. A newer strategy is to place the sprinklers at eye level or, even better, directly on the ground. Then, you have no direct evaporation from the air and all the water is put on the ground. With that approach, the soil can absorb 97 percent of the water, compared to a figure of maybe 65 percent when the sprinklers are on top of the center pivot. This also requires less pressure from the pumping plant.

March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Farmers today are extremely efficient. The technology they use to control their pumps and pivots and optimize which pumps need to be on is unbelievable. VFDs speed up and slow down the pumps, raising and lowering the number of gallons per minute being pumped and saving a huge amount of energy. Moisture sensors in the ground guide farmers on how frequently to irrigate. Some farmers even use infrared drones and thermal imaging cameras on center pivots to detect which plants are more stressed than the others and require more water. That technology is expensive to implement and is still a couple years away for us, but the technology is there.

Hydro Leader: You mentioned improvements such as lining canals and piping open ditches. Do those measures save electricity because they reduce the amount of water that needs to be pumped?

Tom Osborn: That is correct, especially in the large CBP irrigation districts. The Keys pumping plant lifts water from the river 280 feet to the storage canal, and its 12 huge pumps are 65,000 horsepower each. Six of the units are designed to be pump generator units.

Hydro Leader: Do all these efficiency programs go through the local utilities?

Tom Osborn: The programs for the irrigators go through the local utilities. The projects for the power substations, the dams, and the large irrigation districts go directly through BPA. Irrigation districts can also get grant funding through Reclamation’s WaterSMART program. Some irrigation districts also apply to the state environmental protection agencies for funding.

Hydro Leader: Does BPA identify the improvements that it wants irrigation customers to make, or do customers propose their own ideas?

30 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Tom Osborn: BPA has been working in energy efficiency since 1980 and has saved over 2,000 average MW. That means is we have not had to procure resources to provide that additional 2,000 MW. Why didn’t we just build more nuclear plants or install combustion turbines? That is because Congress wanted us to look at efficiency first. Since 1980, BPA has thought of energy efficiency as a resource, and Congress has directed us to give energy efficiency a 10 percent credit.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your vision for the future of BPA’s efficiency programs.

Tom Osborn: Our efficiency program should be tailored to support the Pacific Northwest’s clean energy goals, which include incorporating energy efficiency. I think it should also include demand response, which means turning loads on and off in response to power system needs. One of our customers, a small utility, keeps its power bill from BPA low by turning hot water heaters off for 15 minutes during peak usage in the morning. They offered homeowners a small credit on their power bill for participating. They’ve been successfully reducing their kilowatt demand using this strategy since 1986, and they are able to shift 10 percent of their load. How can we encourage other utilities to make these kinds of changes? The big question is how to document value in demand response and decide who gets the value or benefit. For instance, does the homeowner receive the value of turning off their hot water heater? In this case, the utility gives the homeowner a small credit on their power bill for participating. Does the electric utility get the benefit? In this case, it does, since it is shifting kilowatt demand. Does the wholesale power, BPA, receive value?

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the day and when our peak is in the morning. What if BPA wanted to shift that load and asked the utilities to push the button at noon? That might not help the utility, and it might shift the demand for a commercial customer and affect its utility power bill. It’s difficult to work all those issues out.

Energy efficiency and its value proposition coupled with the demand component are the future of BPA’s energy efficiency efforts. We will see conversion from natural gas with the electrification of residential housing and commercial buildings, and electric vehicles will be adding to this new demand for clean hydropower energy. The Pacific Northwest will need all the hydropower it can get! H Tom Osborn is a mechanical engineer with Bonneville Power Administration’s energy efficiency group. For more on BPA, visit bpa.gov.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF BPA.

Tom Osborn: About half the irrigation projects are proposed by the irrigators. They might need a VFD, new LED lights, or new irrigation sprinkler equipment.

The other half are initiated by the utility, by BPA, or by one of the contractors that support the utility efficiency programs. We have a couple of people who work in the field with utility customers. They might educate people about rebate programs, perform a pump test, do a lighting audit, or provide a list of electricians or contractors that work in their area to do the installation. We also support custom projects, such as replacing an ice rink chiller or the cooling towers at a hospital. We might put a temporary energy datalogger on the facility and record its energy consumption before and after installation of the new equipment to verify the energy savings and calculate the rebate.

Hydro Leader: How do these programs ultimately affect BPA?

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Innovations in the Pipeline at Krah USA

Krah pipe installed with a 700-kilowatt horizontal Francis turbine at the Three Sisters Irrigation District.

K

rah USA makes large-diameter high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes for use in the irrigation, municipal, and hydropower markets. In this interview, coCEOs Midge Graybeal and Mark Theetge and consultant Marc Thalacker, the manager of an irrigation district in Oregon, tell us about how municipalities, utilities, mines, marinas, and other customers are turning to the company’s products for a wide range of applications.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.

Midge Graybeal: Marc Theetge and I are the co-CEOs of Krah USA. I have worked as a facilities manager for large corporations, a marketing and events manager, and a project assistant for engineering firms, concentrating on the built environment and water infrastructure for about 30 years.

These firms designed and constructed water and wastewater facilities, process piping, and other facilities for corporations, irrigation districts, industrial and food processing plants, and municipalities. Now, Mark and I provide products for infrastructure projects throughout the western United States.

34 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Marc Thalacker: I manage Three Sisters Irrigation District (TSID) in Sisters, Oregon. The first big project I did with Mark was in 2008, when TSID’s WaterSMART application was number 1 in the country out of 200 applications. I purchased 20,000 feet of 54‑inch HDPE pipe from him. We’ve now piped 60 of the 65 miles of canals in the district, and we’re in the process of piping the last 5. In November, Krah delivered 9,500 feet of 24‑inch pipe to the district for installation during December. TSID is unusual in that we do all our own construction when we put in piping projects. In addition to that, we’re basically the only people in Oregon who have built hydro plants in the last couple of years. We built one in 2014 and one in 2018, and we are now building a third. Throughout the years, of the 60 miles of pipe I mentioned, and of another 60 miles of on-farm pipe, I’ve bought well over half from Mark.

I’ve had a chance to learn about HDPE from him. Through my involvement with numerous organizations, I have become an adviser for irrigation districts throughout the West.

Midge Graybeal: Together, we have expertise in engineering and marketing; in pipe manufacturing, design, and sales; and in pipe construction and installation. We bring a deep knowledge in all three areas and can deliver excellent service to our clients.

Hydro Leader: How does Krah USA relate to the German company Krah?

Midge Graybeal: We are independently owned and are not a subsidiary of Krah. Krah USA and the other Krah companies are part of the Krah family, meaning that they can advise us and help us find the material or information that we need. We just took the name of the German company and have the rights to use it.

There are 90 other Krah plants around the world, including in Argentina, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Japan, hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KRAH USA.

Mark Theetge: I am a co-CEO and the chief sales officer for Krah USA. I’ve been a polyethylene product specialist for my entire career, which spans over 30 years. I have worked with owners, engineers, and end users in the polyethylene industry. I was always looking for the next product to sell that would help projects in progress. For over 25 years now, I’ve built a relationship with Marc Thalacker and Midge Graybeal, and over the years, we’ve discussed how we could sell a polyethylene and polypropylene product here in the United States. Now, we have a state-of-the-art engineered product that will be well received for agricultural, hydroelectric, and municipal use.

A Krah staff member checks the temperature of a pipe mandrel to make sure it is ready for hot strips of polyethylene to be wrapped around it.

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Construction on a HDPE penstock connecting a 300-kilowatt horizontal Francis turbine at the Three Sisters Irrigation District to a turbine shutoff valve.

the Phillippines, and Saudi Arabia. Eventually, when we get past the COVID‑19 pandemic, we’ll get to host the biannual Krah fly-in. All the lead teams of the other Krah plants in the other countries will come to the United States to visit Krah USA. We’re looking forward to that.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us more about the company?

Midge Graybeal: We founded Krah USA in December 2019.

It was a fast-tracked project. We got our lease in July 2020, received our first equipment in November, and were producing pipe by December of that year. With two pieces of equipment, we can make pipe that ranges in diameter from 4 to 196 inches. Our first project was for 60‑inch pipe. Our clients include irrigation districts, municipalities, hydropower plants, tide gates, landfills, and oil and gas companies, among others. We also make solid-wall profile pipe, manholes, fittings, tanks, and silos. We provide CPR profile pipe for tide gates, and we provide welding services.

Mark even designed and manufactured a water tank for a winery in southern Oregon. Ultimately, we will be providing consulting services so that we can help clients design their pipes in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

We decided to locate our company in the Prineville area because there is a lot of infrastructure money from the federal government coming in through the irrigation districts. We realized there were not a lot of other manufacturing companies in the area, and we knew that the local consumers were paying up to $5,000 per truck to bring in large pipe. In Oregon, we are well located to supply pipe to the entire western United States. We’re already shipping to Alaska, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, and we’re working on projects in Colorado and Utah. Our clients spend significantly less on shipping than they would if they were to order pipe from the East Coast, Texas, or Canada. hydroleadermagazine.com

Marc Thalacker: The Krah product allows Krah USA to build manholes and manifolds and things of that nature, so Krah USA could go into a wastewater treatment project, build all the tanks and structures inside the plant, hook up all the plumbing, and run lines out to connect the sewers coming in.

Krah USA expects federal infrastructure money to fund more large wastewater projects that require manholes and plant tanks.

Hydro Leader: How many people do you employ?

Midge Graybeal: We have a core of 12 and plan to eventually hire up to 30.

Marc Thalacker: Krah USA also has a lot of auxiliary products and services to offer. For instance, Krah USA is working with outside contractors performing welding and installation on a 33‑ and 36‑inch solid-wall pipe for an irrigation district in Washington. In addition to having its own truck, Krah USA works with multiple trucking firms and contractors who ship pipe to projects all over the Northwest.

Hydro Leader: What are the advantages of HDPE pipe, and how does Krah’s HDPE differ from others on the market?

Mark Theetge: There really isn’t anything like it. There are traditional solid-wall pipes that are produced as extruded, but we wind with mandrels, so we can basically manipulate material to any process. That’s something that can’t be done elsewhere in the United States. We see ourselves as providing the next generation of what people will be using. The next generation of piping products are engineered for specific use and longevity and range in size from 24 to 196 inches. Other corrugated or profiled products can’t reach the pressures or the stiffness that we can. Krah pipe can be used in the conveyance of any fluid or gas appropriate to the properties of the material, including March 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT potable, raw, and reclaimed water; methane gas; and foul air. It seems like everything, at least in this industry, starts in Europe eventually reaches the United States.

Midge Graybeal: Another benefit of our product is that it enables electrofusion welding, which is easy to do right in the field. It’s not a traditional weld. The product is chemical resistant, microorganism resistant, and abrasion resistant. Mark can tell you that he has run trucks over the pipe, and it doesn’t break: It’s impact resistant. Since we are in the Northwest, it’s important that plastic pipes are seismic compatible. When the ground undulates, they undulate, too, and won’t crack or break like PVC or concrete does. HDPE won’t rust like steel does.

It has a 100+ year shelf life; we have a 50‑year warranty on our product right now. Another advantage is that we can put colors inside the pipes—blue for water, green for wastewater, and yellow to attract fish to screens and passage for culverts.

Marc Thalacker: I’ve spent 25 years tearing out steel, PVC, and concrete to replace them with HDPE pipe. The district’s operations and maintenance needs have almost gone to zero, because the only time you ever need to fix HDPE pipe is when someone accidentally hits it with a backhoe. It’s incredibly tough. Another thing I love about the product is that it bends, so it fits in winding ditches. Aging infrastructure is the number 1 issue in western water, so I always wondered why you would put in a product that you have to replace in 30–50 years when you can put something in that’s got a potential shelf life of 100–1,000 years. That’s why I chose HDPE pipe.

Midge Graybeal: In the age of reduce, recycle, and reuse, many cities, municipalities, and now even irrigation districts want to have a certain percentage of reused material in their products.

That was the case with the city of Prineville. A huge advantage of our HDPE pipe is that it’s 100 percent recyclable. If people order pipes and decide they’re too small, we can dig them up, put in a bigger pipe, break down the old pipe into pellets, and reuse it. Producing the pipe literally creates no waste, no chemicals, and no gas fumes. Today, it’s important that people know there is nothing going to the landfill.

Hydro Leader: Please discuss your products of interest for the hydropower industry.

36 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

Marc Thalacker: Before I started building hydro plants for TSID, I spent time driving all over the Northwest and the West, looking at hydro facilities that had been installed to see what had gone right and what had gone wrong. I saw a lot of what had gone wrong. One of the things that I realized was that because penstocks are so difficult, most people had installed steel penstocks at high pressure. The problem was that they wore out after around 30 years. That is problematic. I build my hydro facilities to last a minimum of 100 years, which makes them a much more viable renewable product. Wind turbines have a limited lifespan, after which they literally have to be replaced, and solar panels only last a certain number of years, but with hydro facilities, you can rebuild the turbine after 30–50 years and continue to run it. I was concerned about hydro facilities using steel pipe, encased in a 5‑foot block of concrete, to lead up to the turbine shutoff valve. With the one I’m building right now, the HDPE pipe goes all the way inside the plant, so I will never have to touch, replace, fix, or slipline it over the 100‑year lifespan of the turbine. In Japan, Krah manufacturers have gotten some of their penstocks all the way up to 200–300 psi. It is a challenge to weld large pipes with diameters above 72 inches, but there are a limited number of fusing machines that can weld HDPE solid-wall pipe with diameters from 72 inches all the way up to 138 inches. In the long term, there will be the opportunity for Krah USA to build large-diameter penstocks.

Hydro Leader: How can prospective customers get in touch with you?

Midge Graybeal: I would encourage anybody to give Mark a call or to send an e-mail to sales@krahusa.com or marktheetge@krahusa.com. We’re doing tours almost every week for organizations from across Oregon and Washington.

If a group wants to tour the plant, we’d be happy to show them what we’re doing. H

Midge Graybeal and Mark Theetge are co-CEOs of Krah USA. They can be contacted at sales@krahusa.com, marktheetge@krahusa.com, or (888) 457‑2487.

Marc Thalacker manages the Three Sisters Irrigation District and works as a consultant for Krah USA. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KRAH USA.

Mark Theetge: I worked on a penstock project with PacifiCorp, which started my interest in discovering new products for use. PacifiCorp removed a 100‑year-old, 120‑inch-diameter pipe and replaced it with polyethylene. At the time of my investigation more than 20 years ago, large-diameter profilewall pipes in the United States were limited to 22 pounds per square inch (psi). The market that existed was for pipe above that pressure level. I saw the need for a product, unlike steel, that was resistant to the abrasive suspended material that is typically found in raw water. Outside the United States, Krah was developing pipes that had a pressure rating of 125 psi. It

offered a higher-pressure pipe made from a material that was resistant to the abrasive elements. The pipe also had a higher mechanical efficiency, eliminating the need for some of the maintenance that steel piping would require. This focused my interest in bringing Krah to the United States.

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JOB LISTINGS

Leader ydro H Does your organization have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages? Hydro Leader provides this service to irrigation districts, water agencies, and hydropower facilities free of charge. For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

MULTIPLE POSITIONS Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Washington, DC Deadline: Open until filled Summary: NHA is currently seeking applicants for the positions of Director of Government Affairs, Content Development Specialist, and Program Assistant, to focus on policy, media content, and administrative support respectively.

Apply: https://careers.hydro.org/jobs/

WATER RESOURCES/RESTORATION PROJECT MANAGER Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Portland, OR Deadline: Open until filled Application Deadline: Open until filled Apply: https://www.anchorqea.com/careers/careers-openpositions/

CIVIL STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Long Beach, Irvine, or San Francisco, CA Deadline: Open until filled Summary: A staff engineer with 3 to 7 years of experience with emphasis on supporting the design of civil infrastructure along the waterfront and in the marine environment.

Apply: https://www.anchorqea.com/ careers/careers-open-positions/

38 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2022

UNITED STATES SOCIETY ON DAMS MULTIPLE DAM AND LEVEE INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Throughout the United States Application Deadline: Until filled Summary: The USSD envisions a world in which all dams and levees are safe and valued by the communities they serve, and the organization embraces a mission of empowering professionals to advance sustainable benefits of dams and levees for society. In the furtherance of these objectives, multiple positions within this industry sector are posted on the USSD’s website.

Apply: Here

TECHNICAL SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Northwest U.S. Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Present NuSTREEM well by representing our product and our values accurately and enthusiastically through maintain existing lines of business relationships and effectively obtain new business, building rapport and trust with both internal and external customers and providing market feedback to help product development, marketing, and other strategies.

Apply: https://nustreem.com/careers/

NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY TRANSMISSION MODELING POSTDOC RESEARCHER Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Golden, CO Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Accomplished transmission modeling engineer within the Grid Planning and Analysis Center (GPAC).

GPAC research staff contribute to an exciting portfolio of energy analysis, applying advanced modeling and hydroleadermagazine.com

JOB LISTINGS simulation tools to optimally plan for, design, and analyze the distribution and bulk power systems.

Apply: https://www.nrel.gov/careers/

PROJECT DESIGNER Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Tracy, CA Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Support the Project Manager’s efforts from inception through production both in new product design and in existing product redesign on each individual project.

Apply: www.nwpipe.com/careers

TECHNICAL MARKETING MANAGER Salary: TBD based on qualifications Location: Orem, UT or Salt Lake City, UT Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Develop, maintain, and improve relationships with the engineering and specification community in all viable markets. Identify new and existing products that require an educational and promotional focus and develop a marketing plan to maximize all product lines.

Apply: www.nwpipe.com/careers

GEOLOGIST Salary: $4583 - $5,741 monthly Location: Austin, TX Deadline: Open until filled Summary: Performs complex (journey-level) to advanced (senior-level) geosciences and hydrological work. Work involves conducting and overseeing the execution of technical projects to map, characterize, and model groundwater in the aquifers of the state related to the Brackish Resources Aquifer Characterization System Program.

Apply: https://www.twdb.texas.gov/jobs/index.asp

FOR ADDITIONAL HYDRO-RELATED CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, VISIT: National Hydropower Association careers page: https://www.hydro.org/careers/ United States Society on Dams job listings page at: https://www.ussdams.org/resource-center/job-postings/

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March 9 Nebraska Water Resources Association, Water Roundtable, Lincoln, NE March 9–11 Texas Water Conservation Association, Annual Convention, Fort Worth, TX March 10 Oregon Water Resources Congress, District Managers Workshop, Newport, OR March 15–16 CEATI International, 13th Annual Hydropower Conference, Palm Springs, CA March 21–23 Utah Water Users Association, Utah Water Users Workshop, St. George, UT March 25–26 American Public Power Association, Lineworkers Rodeo, Austin, TX April 5–7 National Hydropower Association, Waterpower Week, Washington, DC April 7–8 The P3 Water Summit, San Diego, CA April 11–16 United States Society on Dams, Annual Conference and Exhibition, San Diego, CA April 13 Nebraska Water Resources Association, Water Roundtable, Lincoln, NE April 19–21 Bureau of Reclamation, International Best Practices in Risk Analysis Workshop (virtual) May 3–4 Northwest Hydroelectric Association, Technical Workshop and Owners Forum, Redmond, OR May 3–6 Association of California Water Agencies, Spring Conference and Exhibition, Sacramento, CA May 10–11 National Hydropower Association, Midwest Regional Meeting, St. Louis, MO May 10–12 National Water Resources Association, Federal Water Issues Conference, Washington, DC May 22–25 Edison Electric Institute and American Gas Association, Spring Accounting Conference, Santa Ana Pueblo, NM

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