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Plans for Susitna dam are moving fast, but better alternatives existOf course outrage is natural when the truth finally sinks in. A dam as stupefyingly massive as one to be built on the Susitna River will certainly cripple salmon runs and caribou stocks and the prime hunting and fishing lands from the Denali Highway south into the heart of the Susitna Valley. But before and after anger at the sheer stupidity of how fast the Susitna Dam is proceeding lies a quiet discouragement that Our Elected Officials, with no public input, could have decided to build it at all. What'll they think up next? A Teflon-domed city with golf courses in the Alaska Range? (Former U.S. Senator from Alaska Mike Gravel did get significant funding for that one a generation ago. Alaskans stopped it.) The Susitna Dam is the largest state-funded project in Alaska history with a cost of 5 to 8 billion dollars. When built to its full 800-foot height it will be the 8th tallest dam on earth. While the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington averages 3,400 megawatts a year, the Susitna Dam will average 280 to 300 megawatts. The final insult is that a monstrous dam that will get a ridiculously small amount of electricity for such a huge public expense is simply not necessary: There are many better alternatives for power. Cheaper. Less destructive. More in keeping with what Alaska is all about than, say, China or Pakistan where frantic maniacal development might have some justification. Truth remains that the Susitna Dam is happening. Fast. The Susitna River has naturally-high levels of toxic minerals above which salmon die; dynamiting large areas of river rock to build a dam will increase those mineral levels. The Susitna River also has naturally-high water temperatures above which salmon die; water shot through dam turbines will increase those temperatures. But the studies that would indicate whether the 4th largest king run in Alaska might be totally exterminated require time, which the State is refusing to allow. Every local, state, and federal fisheries agency that would do those studies express documented alarm at the speed with which the dam is being pushed. The hunting lands from the Denali Highway across the Talkeetna Mountains into the Susitna Valley -- Unit 13, perhaps the best and most concentrated caribou-moose-and-bear habitat in Alaska -- would have dam construction roads and camps and gravel-pits and a 40-mile-long reservoir. That'd be the end of world-class game takes. But tour buses would have good parking at America's Tallest Dam gift shops. The electricity that the dam would produce would only be cheap with enormous state subsidies. That means we pay to pretend we aren't. Since the dam would bring no electricity to the Bush or Southeast, those Alaskans would pay dearly for nothing. So what are the alternatives? To start: Alaska has more sources for energy than anywhere else on the planet, enough to last basically forever. And that does not include energy from a single humungous dam. 1) Cook Inlet natural gas now powers most of the area the dam would serve, Fairbanks to Homer. There's enough natural gas in Cook Inlet for at least a hundred years more. The North Slope holds a virtually unlimited supply. Piping it down is imminent and inevitable, though Our Elected Officials are currently arguing over which route and what amount and who would "own" it. 2) Alaska's geothermal potential rivals Iceland's where a third of the country is already powered by geothermal. Large geothermal developments in Alaska have begun, with a projected timeframe of ten years to completion. (The Susitna dam would take 12 to 15.) 3) Tidal power is now at the stage that wind and solar were at before those technologies became common. Alaska holds 90 percent of America's tidal potential. In ten years minimum, twenty years max (according to every industry projection), the electricity from Alaska's 30-foot tides will be moving toward their 100,000-megawatt potential. 4) Alaska's first two big wind farms, with a capability of 75 megawatts, will start generating electricity next year. Yes, that isn't steady power, but it's a fraction of what's possible. 5) As important as any of the above is energy efficiency, meaning saving electricity instead of spending it. According to the recent Railbelt Electrical Efficiency Landscape report, "A 50-percent improvement in the Railbelt’s electricity efficiency could generate an increase of up to $947,992,100 in economic output, $290,927,800 in wages, and $53,499,850 in business income. It would also create an astounding estimated 9,350 new jobs." A 50-percent energy efficiency savings would almost equal the dam's electrical output. But the Susitna Dam is proceeding. It is discouraging to recognize that the only way to stop this latest preposterous misuse of our public lands and monies requires focused effort, time, organized opposition, emails-to-legislators. But our children's children will be grateful. If they, too, have the Alaska we now honor and cherish, the legacy we leave them will be worth everything. To see those alarming agency documents and more details about what the Susitna dam would destroy, visit www.susitnadamalternatives.org. Richard Leo is an author and a former columnist for the Anchorage Daily News. He is a member of the Coalition for Susitna Dam Alternatives and lives in Trapper Creek. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com. Funny how every greenie is for green energy until someone actually tries to build it. Susitna should have been built 30 years ago and the whole State would be benefiting today. It might, maybe kill a few fish, or will it benefit the fish? I am sure we will study that and other things forever instead of building the dam. Get on with and don't let hand wringing NIMBY's delay it for another 30 years. You know, of course, that the REAL Alaska hydroelectric project is the Yukon Flats. Should have been built 50 years ago, and powerful interests may delay it another 50. Some very interesting comments in the opinion piece and in the comments following. Actually, although Southeast and the Bush won't immediately and directly benefit from Susitna hydroelectric generation. In the long run they should - as we extend the grid network around Alaska. Technology just gets better and better. For example, there is now a means to produce carbon fiber for electrical transmission lines. This should lend itself to Alaska to help lower the cost of electrical transmission. I realize there may be impacts on salmon, however, absent studies, we don't know whether the impacts will be good or bad. In the meantime, since we're discussing creating a huge reservoir. How about considering a fish ladder for anadromous fish to potentially use the newly created habitat? Who knows, straying salmon will find their way up the ladder and create a new run of fish? Hydroelectric plants often are a boondoggle when initially constructed, but unlike non-renewable energy projects and even some renewable projects once the cost is known, that cost is fixed. That is the magic of hydro. Centainly, not to destroy salmon habut we should consider weighing the costs of doing nothing and building a source of renewable energy. Don't dismiss a connection to Southeast Alaska too fast. The distance to Southeast in terms of necessary transmission infrastructure is much less than one might think. There are major components of such a link which are already in existence. And building out the the villages is becoming more cost-effective with newer technologies. I think we should cool natural gas to a liquid state with electricity rather than using fossil fuels to do so. Why compound pollution when we have renewables which can do this? Susitna's energy production won't all be useable at once by Alaska it will take years to fully use it. So we will be able to afford to make use of it - to make our state more productive and prosperous. We certainly don't want to destroy salmon halitat. Seems like there are mitigants. As for mitigating high energy costs, hydro is the best long term solution. I was talking to a store owner in Western Alaska a week ago. He claimed he is now billed $1 kilowatt. In Grant County Eastern Washington residential rates are less than 4 cents. Industrial is probably half. Well I was able to read a little more of Leo the liar's Susitna. How Sen. Ellis of Anchorage and Sen. thomas of Fairbanks have their hands in Conoco/Enstar pocket I do not know. The Conoco’s shills are even trying to kill CIRI’s windfarm on Fire Island because the windfarm will displace a little bit of Conoco/ Enstar gas. The Parnell/Ellis/Thomas one half Watana Dam will add over a billion dollars and ten year delay to cost of Susitna and may well kill Susitna. FERC having rejected a ½ Watana Dam may well reject Parnell’s ½ Watana Dam again when and if Susitna ever gets back before FERC again. Great article. It is amazing that some seem to believe that anadromous fish can't be harm unless they spawn above the dam site. If you change the chemistry and temperature of the entire river and altered flows change the downstream morphology in a way that will take decades to stabilize, you will substantially reduce the productivity of the fisheries for generations to come. Dam advocates, like Pebble mine advocates, should at least be honest enough to admit they are asking Alaskans to trade off healthy fisheries for their pet projects. When you dam the rivers, you damn the fish. We are hearing from yet another liar, honesty and integrity is as rare as among the greenies as it is the oil companies it seems to be constant flood lies. Only one percent of the fish that enter the Susitna River spawn in the Susitna River. No fish spawn in with 14 miles of the furthest down river dam, the Devil Canyon Dam. Only 5% of the fish that spawn in tributaries of the Susitna River could possibly be effected by the rise and fall of the Susitna River. The Dams impound only 19% of the water that flows out at the mouth of the Susitna River. The above is one of the reason, fisheries and lack of environmental degradation, that the Susitna River Hydroelectric project was original sponsored by the Sierra Club back in the 1960s The would be conservationist of today lack honesty and integrity and will say anything Alice, why do you print such crap without some oversight? Can’t you find an editor who has broad knowledge ? Normally, I think the comments you make are reasonable, but using inflammatory rhetoric doesn't help. To each their own I guess... Do you have a source for the quip about the Sierra Club "sponsoring" the Susitna dam? The Sierra Club was one of the leading opponents to the original proposal... Not sure where you're getting your news. Bad ideas never die. It is to bad we didn't do this 30 years ago. 30 years from now we either be glad we did it now or wish we had. ..to all the folks pinning future power hopes on a dam, relegating natural gas to a lower rung.. you`d better jump aboard the all-Alaska gasline train. It`s doable sooner, and will cost far less for the amount of energy-cost relief, industry and jobs it will bring. Besides, Alaska is sitting on the two largest CONVENTIONAL natural gas basins on the north American continent. I`m thinking we should monetize that. Don`t you agree? Isn`t that what was expected under the statehood pact? We need to do something, and we can, about the three billion bcf a day that is not needed to maintain well pressures. A GTL plant would add 100,000 barrels a day to the TAPS volume very quickly. That plant would only use 0.8 bcf per day of the available 3.0 bcf a day surplus natural gas! That still leaves 2.5 to 3bcf per day for the rest of the Alaska gas products markets, which will include Alaska and one good "anchor" customer for Alaskan LNG from tidewater. It beats pinning our state-wide hopes on a danged dam that will end up in court for years. We already own the R.O.W. for the all-Alaska line. First we need to extract the state from the AGIA compact as it is patently uneconomical thanks to shale gas in the lower 48. A gasline is smart, big-picture & long-term, for 2 reasons: 1.) He who serves the market, fills the demand, owns the market. 2.) When the gas is gone, Alaska has MASS coal. The future of coal is gasification ... the coal will go right down the gasline, when the wellheads dry off. Get out there in front of the competitors, even if the solution/implementation is not perfect. He who supplies the gas first, wins. And always remember that it was really ALWAYS the coal. Don't know if Leo has the fact straight on the dam output. But he's right on a lot of other stuff. And he didn't even mention the major fault zone these dams and impoundments may cross or are very nearby. The Mat Su folk are in a huff over the salmon management in Cook Inlet. Well there'll probably be a whole lot less salmon to argue about once these dams are built. I wonder how water quality will be affected when the impoundment area is flooded - could be a pretty dramatic change in acid levels etc. People gotta get it thru their heads that Hydro power is NOT green. There used to be an old commercial fisherman who lived near Talkeetna. He told me he sued the state and won when they improperly installed the culverts on Fish Creek and ruined salmon spawning areas from acidification - that was in the early 1970's I think. Imagine what a 40 mile impoundment would do! Thanks for speaking up Richard. As a biologist, I avoided working on the Su-Hydro boondoggle of the 1980's as I was already convinced it was a stupid idea. The only thing better about this one is there are fewer dams. Richard Leo is another "green power" advocate that focuses mainly on wind power as the answer to Alaska's energy requirments. Sadly, industrial wind power would sink Alaska back into the darkest times of it's history. Getting the facts straight would be a good place to start when reporting on the hydro-project planned for the state. A 600 megawatt capacity is the project size not 280-300 as mistated by Leo. People like Leo claimed the Prudhoe Bay operation and the pipeline would run off the Caribou and Moose and that never happened. Experts even made the oil companies build walkways over the pipeline that were never used by the animals. The Richard Leo's of the world simply want to block industry everywhere they can; not realizing that the industrial revolution in the USA doubled mankind's longevity and improved the environment much more than third world nations. This typical neo-maltusian approach will only result in a declining standard of living for all of us. "The Richard Leo's of the world simply want to block industry everywhere they can..." Yes, we do have a bunch of people these days who are 'anti-everything'. We also have a different bunch of 'Leos' who think our future is "Urban Man". A small city should be seen primarily as to good start on a Big City. An Alaska with 700 thousand people, should be looked at as halfway to 1.4 million. 'Urban development' was the name of the game, through the 20th C., but it was showing cracks toward the end. A big dam in the Susitna canyon lets Anchorage claim the entire watershed. All the way up to all the headwaters in the Alaska Range, Big City rules will go into effect. It's not Red-State, Blue-State. It's Red-rural, Blue-urban. The bigger & stronger Anchorage gets, the Bluer it gets, and the more it looks out after the interests of the Anti Crowd. Those who oppose the anti-everything view, should push for gas and/or coal-fired electricity, and stay on guard against Anchorage turning into Los Anchorage. Giving the City an excuse to claim huge swaths of Alaska is a mistake. The real 'value' of this dam & empoundment, will be to 'tame' the lower reaches of the Susitna River, the better to facilitate development of the riverine real estate, bridge the river into the west, etc. The electrical generation is almost an 'excuse', for other objectives which in the longer haul would come to eclipse the power-contribution (even as the growing urban demand eclipsed & rendered it inadequate). This empoundment of the Susitna offers a hefty assist to the goal of an 'actually-urbanized', and eventually even metropolitan, Southcentral Alaska. This has been the real goal for a long time, and there appears to be a 'unique' opportunity combining stimulus, employment and green energy factors, to make this major move on the big-picture Alaska chessboard. Unless Alaskans let Juneau know where to cram it. |
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