FERC inquiry into Reusens Dam near Lynchburg comes back inconclusive

In order to investigate if Eagle Creek was in violation of its license that outlines the minimum amount of water that must pass through the dam, FERC requested the company submit a record of flows 7½ miles upstream of the dam measured by the U.S. Geological Survey gauge located at Holcomb Rock, the amount of water flowing out of the dam and project generation output between June 1, 2017 and Jan. 25.

On March 28, Eagle Creek submitted a filing to FERC sharing that during the process of gathering the data, the company discovered the dam’s spillway gate monitor that measures how high the flood gates are open “drifts over time” and shows inaccurate information.

Despite the malfunctioning equipment, Eagle Creek affirmed flows through the dam always have been continuous and have met the required minimums set by the federal government when the license originally was issued in 1994.

Eagle Creek Executive Vice President of Operations Robert Gates said the company has been in the process of learning the equipment at the plant and now that the issue of the faulty sensor has been discovered, it will be corrected.

“Eagle Creek purchased this last year and we have been rehabilitating the plant and bringing the machines back online, learning all about everything that has to do with the plant as far as operations and while we were doing that one of the things we have found is that the instrumentation isn’t up to par with other plants that we own and operate,” Gates said.

“There was a complaint that was filed, FERC followed up into the complaint and we will comply with their request to upgrade the equipment so we won’t have any future issues.”

Rob Campbell, a community conservationist with the James River Association, and some other local river lovers view it differently. Shortly after Eagle Creek purchased the Reusens hydroelectric plant from Appalachian Power Company in April 2017 and completed the necessary renovations to begin generating power in July, Campbell said he began observing low water levels on the James River near Lynchburg that were interfering with excursions and other activities.

“As we got into September, we were noticing that the river was dropping to levels we had never seen before, and it wasn’t necessarily because of a lack of rain,” he said. “We had seen the water the way we were used to seeing it, and then the bottom fell out of that. We had rocks showing here that we had never seen before, and we had folks that started on the river and the water levels were fine and then they’d get halfway through the trip and the levels would just completely disappear on them.”

As soon as he began seeing low water levels, Campbell notified FERC and told the agency he believed Eagle Creek was holding back too much water behind the dam in order to make more electricity. Over the next several weeks, he worked with other James River sportsmen and advocates to try and capture photos of the dam with all of its gates closed, holding water behind it, so FERC could have evidence of the low flows to open an official inquiry.

“We were finally able to catch them in the act with drone footage [in October],” Campbell said. “We caught a beautiful, terrible picture of them holding all of the water back. They say there’s still current coming through somewhere, but I don’t believe it at all because if you look at that footage, the water all across the dam was just glassy smooth.”

APCo Maintenance Supervisor David Agee, who worked at Reusens dam when it was owned by the company prior to the sale to Eagle Creek, examined a still photo from the drone footage captured by Campbell that was submitted to FERC.

He said that while this photo appears to shows no water flowing through the dam, Eagle Creek could have passed enough water through any one of its roughly 1,100 cubic feet-per-second capacity turbines for a brief period of time and still met the hourly average mandated by the federal government.

“That’s only a second in time and it doesn’t indicate what they did for that entire hour,” Agee said. “Typically all of our plants, which are operated in a similar fashion, it’s like turning on the kitchen sink so you come in at the top of the hour and turn it on for 20 minutes to generate power and then you cut it off and you average that flow over the entire hour and you meet your requirement.”

Hydroelectric dams must be licensed to operate by FERC, which sets a requirement for the average hourly flow of water that must pass through the dam depending on the level of the river. The license for Reusens, which has a power generation capacity of 12.5 megawatts, was issued in 1994 and is set to expire in 2024.

In order to stay in compliance, when there is less than 3,300 cubic feet per second flowing into the dam, the operators of Reusens must release a minimum of 333 cubic feet per second of water on average over each hour. If flows are less than 333 cubic feet per second, Reusens must release the same amount of water through the dam that is flowing in on average over each hour.

APCo first took ownership of the dam in 1924. The company generated power there for decades until a series of mechanical and electrical issues made it too expensive for the company to maintain, and operations stopped in 2011, according Agee.

In his time working at Reusens, Agee said the dam experienced high levels of fluctuation of how much power could be generated depending on the level of rainfall.

“It was a little volatile as far as what we could produce out of that site,” Agee said. “It was like the farmer because we were dependent on rain. If it didn’t rain, our [power] generation suffered.”

In addition to the requirements of how much water must pass through the dam depending on the water level in the river, Agee said FERC also regulates how much the water levels behind the dam can rise and fall as the company holds back water to try and meet the demand for power. Although the license allowed for water levels to rise and fall upriver of the dam by approximately 3½ feet, Agee said APCo rarely moved the water levels in large amounts to minimize the effect to the river and keep water levels constant.

“From an operational perspective, it would have been a short-sighted gain for us,” he said. “We may have done well at that one point in time, but especially in drought conditions, if you draw the water down, it will take you forever to get the water back up again.”

In an April 11, 2018, filing in response to the data submitted by Eagle Creek, FERC’s Division of Hydropower Administration and Compliance’s Aquatic Resources Branch Chief Thomas LoVullo said while the damaged equipment means FERC cannot prove or deny any wrongdoing, the problems will go into the federal government’s records for the dam in case there are more reports.

“While we will not consider your inconclusive data to be a violation of [Eagle Creek’s license], this incident will be made a part of the compliance history for the project and taken into consideration regarding any future similar events,” the filing said. “Please be aware that we expect you to maintain adequate and accurate data to ensure compliance with your license, and any future inadequate or inaccurate data reports could be considered a violation of your project license.”

Due to the compliance investigation, FERC is requiring Eagle Creek to repair the faulty sensors by May 11 and update its operations plan by Aug. 9.

Mason Basten, a local sportsman and owner of River Road Jet Boats in Madison Heights, said he is frustrated the system for compliance relies on self-reported data, which makes it difficult for FERC to punish offenders who are operating hydroelectric dams improperly if there is wrongdoing.

“God bless FERC,” he said. “They’ve got their hands tied because the system is set up to be inefficient, and FERC has run headlong into one of their own inefficiencies. I hope that [FERC’s] ability to follow up and keep an eye on them means something because having the property owners be responsible for that burden of proof is a cop out.”

Basten describes himself as a strong supporter of hydroelectric power, but he would like to see companies operate their facilities in a way that has minimal effect on the area.

“If you want to run a hydroelectric plant, then do it the way Appalachian Power did for 30 years,” he said. “You abide by the same laws and operating standards that they abided by, and if you’re going to keep doing it another way, then I hope the federal government just absolutely rakes you over the coals.”

Margaret Carmel covers Lynchburg for The News & Advance. Reach her at (434) 385-5524.