Plans to add electricity-generating turbines in Lane County are running into roadblocks.
The Emerald People’s Utility District is facing environmental and financial obstacles in its efforts to add turbines to two flood-control dams on Willamette River tributaries.
The Emerald People’s Utility District wants to add turbines to the Dorena dam on Row River and the Fall Creek dam on the Middle Fork of the Willamette. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the two dams, which were built decades ago to rein in devastating seasonal flooding.
EPUD, which buys 98 percent of its electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, wants its own hydroelectric sources in order to increase its portfolio of renewable energy and to help keep down customer costs as BPA hikes its rates. The member-owned utility serves about 20,000 customers, mostly residential, in an area that roughly surrounds Eugene-Springfield.
Read the full story at The Register-Guard.
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