Vernon
A
Well, they won't be building anymore big dams. Huge ones anyway. But most of the
major sites have already been used up anyway. But that used to be one of the big bones
of contention in designing the project sites. Here were the economists and some of the
planners saying, "Well, we've got to optimize the benefits of this site. We've got to get
the most benefits for the buck here" and all that kind of stuff. Analyzing the project.
Well, when they were doing this they might have one of the most rare dam sites in the
country. It was impossible to find another one like it. Do you want to go in there and
optimize that thing on present day conditions or do you want to build that thing to take full
advantage of the available site there? Get all of the storage you can get while you're
building it there or do you want to narrow your project down to just the size you can
economically justify on the present conditions or something like that.
So sizing projects became quite controversial. People argue, "Why spend money today
that you don't have to." But the problem is if you don't take full advantage of a site when
you build it, the chances are you never will.
probably never go back and rebuild
the thing. Although because of dam safety, there have been a number of projects that have
had some major changes to them. Not only that but since they made it possible for a
private interest to put in hydropower development in Federal projects, there have been
quite a few add-ons to Corps and other Federal projects to provide hydropower facilities--
take advantage of the dam site and add hydropower. They get a license.
Well, one company, I forgot what the name of it was, but they went out and they grabbed
up a whole bunch of the Federal projects right away when it first became possible to do
that. But then they had a limited amount of time before they had to start developing or
they lost their permit. So after a certain amount of time why they didn't have the
resources or the potential for using up all those sites. So they just used the ones that were
most lucrative.
But there's been quite a few put in. That's a major problem, too, how do you put in a
new hydropower facility with a dam that wasn't designed for it--retrofit an existing dam
or hydropower. How do you use the flood control tunnels and if you do, are you reducing
the flood control capability of that project or are you compromising the other project
benefits by adding that hydropower on there. All those things have to be ironed out. The
Corps has to improve the structural soundness and all that type of stuff before they'll allow
[anything to be done].
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