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Show Future use of power Btfl. focuses on hydro-electric plants By GARY R. BLODGETT BOUNTIFUL Future use of hydro-electric power as a supplementary sup-plementary source of electrical power for Bountiful City was brought into focus at a meeting of the Bountiful City Council and Bountiful Light and Power Department Depart-ment Board of Directors last week. The combined council-power board was told that one hydroelectric hydro-electric power plant at Echo Reservoir Reser-voir is already "on line" and that a second generating plant will begin construction within the next month. , Two other plants are in the planning plan-ning stage one which will be completed in about two years and the other which will undergo preliminary pre-liminary work soon but not be finished until sometime in the early 1990s. Representatives of HARZA Engineering En-gineering Company of Chicago told the group that the plants will be constructed as monies become available and as needed over the next few years. The plant already in operation is at Echo Reservoir in Morgan County. It began producing hydroelectric hydro-electric power this summer with the power transmitted to Bountiful through large power lines over the top of the Wasatch Mountains. The next plant to be constructed because of urgency to get started before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license expires will be on the shore of the Ogden River about 500 feet downstream from Pineview Dam. Construction will also begin before be-fore Aug. 1 on the East Canyon plant just below the concrete dam of East Canyon Reservoir. Still another plant is proposed on Lost Creek, about 35 miles northeast of Bountiful, where preliminary work will be completed soon but that construction of the plant probably will be delayed until the early 1990s. East Canyon will have a 2,000 kilowatt plant constructed downstream down-stream from the concrete dam with river water provided through a 48-inch 48-inch penstock that will be drilled through the wall of the dam. Bob Ivarson, representing the Chicago engineering firm, said drillings through dam walls are not uncommon or dangerous. "We know how to do it so that it is safe and provides no threat of a rupture," rup-ture," he told the group. Construction cost of the generation genera-tion plant is estimated at $2.8 million mil-lion with nearly an additional cost of $1 million for drilling for the penstock, pen-stock, placement of the penstock in the canyon wall, design and transmission trans-mission lines. Mr. Ivarson said there will be no blasting in the dam wall just a lot of drilling. Work on the Pineview River project pro-ject must begin before March 16 to comply with the FERC license deadline. To begin construction, there will be an access road to the proposed powerhouse, extension' of new penstock to replace old wooden pipes from the dam to the powerhouse, and replacement of old lines from the site of the generating gener-ating station back into the stream or piped downstream for irrigation purposes. This project will be owned by Bountiful but will have cooperation coopera-tion from the Weber-Box Elder Water Conservation District and the Ogden River Water Users Association. The 1 ,800 kilowatt generator will be housed in a plant about 300 feet downstream from the Pineview Dam. It will cost an estimated $3,270,000 including a 10 percent contingency fund and will be paid off over a 15-year period, or sooner. City Manager Tom Hardy said consideration is being given to us ing about $2 million of available funds from the Power Department's Depart-ment's Future Power Resource Fund. "Since construction won't be completed for about two years, it's possible that by that time there will be almost enough in the resource fund to make the final payment," he told the group. The Lost Creek project will undergo design and preliminary construction of penstocks by late . 1989 but the plant probably will not be completed until the early 1990s. |