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Show w" Ta"'"'--; by Cecil D. Andrus, Secretary of the Interior By Cecil D. Andrus Secretary of the Interior I'm sure everyone realizes by now that this Administration Administra-tion is not promoting more and bigger dams. But few are aware that we are designing and seeking funds for increasing in-creasing power generation from existing sites. This involves in-volves rewinding and upgrading up-grading older power plants. In addition, there are literally thousands of low dams and other water-control structures struc-tures (such as canal drops) where small generating plants could be installed. A recent study found more than 16,000 recreation reservoir reser-voir dams, 7,000 flood-control dams, an equal number of water-supply dams and 6,000 irrigation dams with sufficient water volume and "head" (a measure of water drop) to power small turbines. That's a lot of potential power. E-nough E-nough in fact, to raise our present hydroelectric supply by one-third to one-half. And that's a truly significant boost when you consider that hydroelectric now furnishes nearly 16 percent of our total electric needs. An obvious question at this rjoint is, "If small dams are so great, why haven't we tried them before?" The answer is that we have. That's how electric power first appeared in this country; from thousands thou-sands of small, local dams built to meet the local needs of communities, factories and so forth. But we abandoned this approach in the 20th Century with the advent of larger dams, and with the coming of vast quantities of cheap petroleum. petro-leum. For a time, it was inefficient and uneconomical to rely on small power plants. But there are significant advantages ad-vantages to smaller structures. struc-tures. Let's examine some of those advantages: First of all, hydroelectric power is the least expensive to produce, using a renewable, renew-able, free-flowing resource-water. resource-water. Costs range from $600 to $1200 per kilowatt of installed capacity. Obviously, larger dams, with their greater great-er head pressures, are more efficient than smaller ones. But even the "Minis" can produce electric power in the range of $1200 per kilowatt. In contrast, thermal and nuclear plants, which use costly and non-renewable fossil fuels, may cost up to $2400 per kilowatt of installed capacity. Small dams can also be the cleanest source of power, and have the least impact on Esh, wildlife and environmental quality. Giant dams create problems in the passage of anadromous fish, such as shad, steelhead and salmon. Fish ladders and other structures struc-tures to aid in fish migration can be expensive, and often less than satisfactory. But these same refinements are relatively easy to build and operate on smaller structures. Big dams also require huge reservoirs, which can be ecologically eco-logically harmful, while hydro generation added to existing small dams has little impact on the environment. These and other considerations consider-ations are already prompting a handful of utility companies to use abandoned sites, or dams originally built for other purposes, as alternatives to investing in large nuclear or coal-fired plants. In Springfield, Spring-field, Vermont, for example, officials plan to use seven old mill dams to supply the electrical elec-trical needs of the town's 10,000 residents. These are small beginnings, and much more needs to be done to re-establish the network net-work of small dams that once flourished. American companies, com-panies, for instance, now make only large generators for large dams, so we may have to look initially to Europe Eur-ope where the technology still flourishes for this equipment. But I am confident that as demand rises, American firms will respond to the need. As Secretary of the Interior, Inter-ior, I look forward to playing a leading role in this exciting challenge. In the coming fiscal year, the Department's Bureau of Reclamation, under the leadership of Commissioner Commis-sioner R. Keith Higginson, is requesting $22 million for investigations and research emphasizing increased hydroelectric hydro-electric generation. By setting the example and demonstrating demon-strating the feasibility of low-head low-head power generation, I believe be-lieve we can encourage state and local governments (which control the use of a vast majority of small dams) to follow suit. |