Salmon dominate dam hearings: Valley residents give earful to federal planners

By Zaz Hollander For the Frontiersman

WASILLA — Don’t mess with the Susitna’s salmon.

That’s the nearly universal message federal licensing officials heard this week during well-attended Mat-Su hearings on a state-backed dam proposed on the Susitna River.

More than 50 people attended a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hearing at Wasilla’s Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center Tuesday night and participants said more than 120 turned out for another hearing the next night at Susitna Valley Junior/Senior High School.

State biologists this week announced sweeping Chinook fishing limits in the Susitna drainage due to expected low returns. Many hearing participants urged the commission to make sure the project doesn’t impede Susitna’s salmon runs.

“There’s never been a dam built in the world that doesn’t affect fish habitat,” said Palmer educator Chris Jones. “Show me a river that’s not been impacted by a dam and I’ll give you a year’s pay.”

Multiple comments focused on whether the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project is even necessary, given efforts to improve energy efficiency and prospects for future supplies of natural gas in Cook Inlet.

“There’s a very real possibility that before you even build a dam, due to a combination of energy efficiency and other alternatives, this dam will not be needed,” Jim Sykes, a Palmer-area resident with a cabin near Talkeetna, said during the Wasilla hearing. Sykes has served on a public advisory board to the Alaska Energy Authority, the state entity charged with building the dam.

Some comments raised the issue of earthquake hazards and the area’s moose and caribou populations.

Many urged the federal licensing body to study the way the project could change the way ice forms on the river.

Winter dam releases to crank out power could raise and lower the river level by nearly three feet at Gold Creek, project managers say. Such dramatic fluctuations could create unstable ice conditions that could threaten winter travel by snowmachine, several people warned in testimony.

But changes to ice could also threaten fish, numerous people said.

Tributaries below Devil’s Canyon freeze solid in winter, so salmon move into the main river when it gets cold, said Larry Engel, a Palmer resident who serves on the Mat-Su Borough’s Fish and Wildlife Commission. Engel urged the commission not to rely on data from the 1980s, when an earlier version of a Susitna dam was proposed.

“We don’t know very much about that,” Engel said. “I would hope this go-around we would look at that very seriously.”

Of the nearly 20 people presenting comments at the Wasilla hearing, several backed the project in varying degrees. Participants said roughly 50 people testified at Su Valley, and two people expressed support.

In Wasilla, CPA Dan Kennedy shared his support for the “tremendous economic opportunity that the Susitna hydroelectric project will bring.”

“I look forward to the dam project,” said longtime educator Peter Burchell, who sits on the Matanuska Electric Association Board of Directors. Burchell, however, urged the commission to require good studies and said all dams come with problems.

The Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project would sit in the Mat-Su Borough about 45 miles east of Cantwell, about halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Backers say it would provide about half the Railbelt’s electricity.

The Alaska Energy Authority estimates the project cost at $4.5 billion. That includes a 700- to 800-foot dam, reservoir at least 39 miles long, a road and transmission line corridor and temporary work camp for up to 1,000 people. As proposed, it would be among the tallest dams in the world, constructed in a remote area that includes pivotal swaths of land owned by Alaska Native corporations and village associations.

Knikatnu Inc. owns roughly 26 miles of linear property on both sides of the Susitna within the project area, according to a nine-page comment letter the Wasilla-based village corporation filed with FERC this week.

Knikatnu supports the project, the letter states. But “as one condition of access to and use of” Knikatnu lands, the corporation requests the government implement federal wildlife management programs to increase moose and other wildlife numbers.

The state hopes to apply for a license in 2015 and start operating the project in 2023.

A series of workgroup meetings about the proposed Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project are planned next week in downtown Anchorage at the project office in the Sunshine Mall, first floor conference room. People also may participate electronically.

Here are the GoTo Meeting and conference times:

• April 2, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Botanical Wildlife Resources