Hydro Leader January 2021

Leader ydro H VOLUME 2 ISSUE 1

Brenna Vaughn of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association: A Voice for the Hydropower Industry

january 2021

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Brenna Vaughn of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association: A Voice for the Hydropower Industry

Contents

January 2021 Volume 2, Issue 1 5 G uaranteeing the Future of Hydropower Around the World

By Kris Polly 8 Brenna

Vaughn of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association: A Voice for the Hydropower Industry 14 Israel

Water Education and Trade Tour Preview, June 27–July 7, 2021

24 T ony Bennett: Improving Public Safety Around Dams in Canada and Worldwide 28 T he International Committee on Large Dams’ World Declaration on Dam Safety 34 L uc Deroo of ISL: Addressing 21st Century Challenges for Dams and Reservoirs

18 C atrin Bryan: Advancing Dam Safety on Both Sides of the U.S.-Canada Border

Hydro Leader Hydro Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

an American company established in 2009.

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator SUBMISSIONS: Hydro Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or hydro.leader@waterstrategies.com.

ADVERTISING: Hydro Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or hydro.leader@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Hydro Leader is distributed to all hydroelectric facility owners in the United States, to hydrorelated businesses, and to every member of Congress and governor’s office. For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Hydro Leader in electronic form, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Hydro Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Hydro Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Hydro Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Hydro Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

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Coming soon in Hydro Leader February: Refurbishment Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

COVER PHOTO:

Brenna Vaughn, Northwest Hydroelectric Association Executive Director.

Photo courtesy of the NWHA.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NWHA.

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Guaranteeing the Future of Hydropower Around the World

By Kris Polly

H

ydropower holds great promise as an energy source for the future. Not only is it renewable and carbon neutral, it also helps stabilize electricity grids and enables the integration of other renewable sources, including solar and wind power. Around the world, organizations like the Northwest Hydroelectric Association (NWHA) and the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) are working to share information, develop effective communication strategies, and address the challenges of the 21st century.

In our cover story, we speak to fourth-generation hydropower professional Brenna Vaughn, who serves as the executive director of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association (NWHA), which brings together members from across the Pacific Northwest, both in the United States and in Canada. Ms. Vaughn tells us about the top messages that hydropower entities need to communicate to the public to secure the future of hydropower and realize its potential to guarantee grid stability and power the future.

We also interview Catrin Bryan, the director of dam safety at engineering and construction firm McMillen Jacobs Associates and an active member of the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) and the NWHA. Ms. Bryan works on dam safety project across the northwestern United States and Canada.

Tony Bennett, the director of public safety at Ontario Power Generation, played a key role in developing the CDA’s guidelines for public safety around dams. Mr. Bennett tells us about the significance of public safety around dams

and the new techniques that are helping preserve lives in Canada and around the world.

We also speak with Michael Rogers, the current president of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD).

ICOLD recently released a World Declaration on Dam Safety, which seeks to summarize and promote the dam safety knowledge collected by its 104 national member organizations around the world.

Luc Deroo is the managing director of French consulting engineering firm ISL, which is active in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and is also active in ICOLD and in the French Committee on Dams and Reservoirs. Mr. Deroo tells us about his work addressing emerging, 21st-century challenges for hydropower, including those linked to demographic change, climate change, and technological advances.

Important work on dam safety and the development new technologies is going on around the world—from Canada to Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is all eminently worthy of our attention—and can provide important lessons for the hydropower industry in this nation, too. H Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Hydro Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Israel Water Education and Trade Tour, June 27–July 7, 2021

Please save the date for this tour, sponsored by Hydro Leader magazine and operated by Imagine Tours and Travel, LLC. $4,707.00 per attendee (with airfare from Dulles airport) $4,319.00 per attendee (without airfare) All posted prices, services, and destinations are subject to the terms and conditions of the participant agreement.

To view, please visit http://hydroleadermagazine.com/israel_tour/.

Hydro Leader magazine is published by Water Strategies LLC.

Services included in the package:

• meeting and assistance at Ben Gurion Airport on arrival • transfer to/from Ben Gurion airport • licensed English-speaking guide for all transfers and sightseeing days • luxury air-conditioned coach • entrance fees for all visits and tours • eight nights of hotel accommodation • breakfasts and dinners at hotels and farewell dinner at local restaurant Water Strategies is still planning for the Israel Water Education and Trade Tour, which is scheduled from June 27 through July 7, 2021. However, given the travel uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Water Strategies has decided to make a final “go or no go” decision on the tour on Monday, March 1, 2021.

As such, we encourage individuals interested in participating in the tour to register.

In the event that Water Strategies cancels the June tour on March 1, the tour will be rescheduled to the following dates: October 3 through October 13, 2021.

Upon cancellation of the June tour on March 1, tour participants may choose to get their deposit back for the June tour or transfer it to the October tour.

As previously mentioned in the tour information materials, travel insurance is recommended.

hydroleadermagazine.com

January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Brenna Vaughn of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association: A Voice for the Hydropower Industry

Idaho Power’s Bliss Dam and Power Plant.

T

he Northwest Hydroelectric Association (NWHA) is a trade association that represents independent energy producers; public and private utilities; local, state, and regional government entities; and individuals across the Northwestern United States and Canada. Its mission is to promote the region’s waterpower as a clean, efficient energy source while protecting wildlife and the environment. In this interview, NWHA Executive Director Brenna Vaughn tells Hydro Leader about the association’s history and current issues and how it helps the hydropower industry to speak with one voice on matters of pressing concern.

Brenna Vaughn: I come from a long line of hydropower workers. I am a fourth-generation hydropower employee.

My great grandfather, Harold A. Linke, was the Utah state engineer. My grandfather, Harold A. Linke Jr., worked on

8 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: What philosophy do you bring from that background to your current role at the NWHA? hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NWHA.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Fontenelle Dam, the beginning of the Central Utah Project, the Weber Basin Project, and the Payson Project. My mom, Deborah Linke, worked for the Western Area Power Administration as the power marketing and rates manager for federal hydropower projects in the western United States and retired after serving for a decade as the manager of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Power Resources Office. I spent my childhood chasing power plants and transmission lines. On my 21st birthday, as a special treat only a hydro person can understand, I stuck my hand out the face of Hoover Dam on a behind-the-scenes tour. During my childhood and college years, I visited hydropower facilities in Italy, Japan, and throughout the United States. My family has been in hydro for a long time, and you could say I grew up in hydro, so it’s fun to step into that field with the NWHA.

ADVERTISEMENT Brenna Vaughn: My personal philosophy is that I am four things: I’m a hydropower advocate, a philanthropist, a mom, and an investor. I used to think that these four roles were siloed. As I have gotten further into my career, however, I have come to see that these four roles intersect to form a hybrid profession. I can be an investor of time and talent, I can educate kids on hydropower, I can be a mentor to a new workforce entrant, and I can educate legislators and decisionmakers about hydropower. I hope that our community continues to recognize this hybridity. We are all able to wear multiple hats, and we can add to the richness of our community and the hydropower industry by bringing more perspectives, roles, and talent into each job.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your philosophy regarding problem solving.

Brenna Vaughn: I am a firm believer in win-win situations.

The more we collaborate and communicate, the more likely we are to find a shared solution. Typically, everyone can get something positive out of collaboration. I see that all the time at the NWHA: When we get into a tough situation or a tough topic, the more we can talk and get to the core of the issue, the more we find that we all care about the environment and clean energy and that there is a shared solution. That is empowering to our members.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the NWHA and its history.

Brenna Vaughn: The NWHA was incorporated in 1981, so this year marks our 40th year as an association. It was formed by a group of folks who were interested in building new hydropower projects in the Northwest. It was a small group of six individuals, including legislators, consultants, and a paper mill executive. It was originally called the Northwest Small Hydroelectric Association, but when larger utilities and other developers joined, we became the NWHA. We’re a 501(c)(6)nonprofit organization.

Hydro Leader: What is the mission of the association?

Brenna Vaughn: The NWHA is dedicated to promoting the region’s waterpower as a clean, efficient energy source while protecting the fisheries and environmental quality that characterize our Northwest region.

Hydro Leader: What are your top issues?

Brenna Vaughn: We are working on a lot of licensing reform processes to allow upgrades and new projects to be installed within more-realistic time frames. We are also seriously looking into powering nonpowered dams in the Northwest and implementing small hydro projects, while also protecting the large projects that provide over 90 percent of the renewable energy to the residents of the Northwest. We are a loud and proud voice for hydropower. During the past year, our organization has worked in our members’ interests regarding Columbia River issues related to total maximum daily temperature loading, Clean Water Act regulations, and other rules and resolutions. That advocacy work takes up a big chunk of my time. Another key issue that we are working on is communication. One of the main things I have worked on during my first year with the NWHA is getting our members to align and synchronize their communications about hydropower.

Hydro Leader: What are some of the main public relations challenges for hydropower owners and operators?

Brenna Vaughn: The population of the Northwest has grown quickly in recent years, with transplants from all over the country. These new arrivals move to our region for clean air, outdoor recreation, and good employment opportunities.

Sometimes those new arrivals are unaware of the role that hydropower plays in maintaining these attributes— for instance, that it is the number 1 source of renewable power here in the Northwest. Misinformation and myths

Northwestern Energy’s Ryan Dam, located near Great Falls, Montana.

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January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT about hydropower are widespread, particularly in younger generations like the millennials and Gen Z.

Hydro Leader: How do you apply those six basic points to various kinds of hydropower and various audiences?

Hydro Leader: What are some of the main misconceptions in the public mind concerning hydropower?

Brenna Vaughn: Hydropower represents a lot of different technologies and facilities, from enormous generating facilities down to really small in-conduit plants on irrigation projects. The communication surrounding hydropower changes as we look at different types of generation.

Although these top six messages are generally the same, we need to specialize them for each type of project.

When we talk about something like conduit hydropower, we typically need to focus on how an irrigation system works and explain that water is being pumped from one place to another in a water basin and that by harnessing water in a conduit, we can return more water into the basin. We need to communicate that closed-loop hydropower systems, sometimes known as pumped-storage hydropower systems, often have minimal environmental effects. These projects typically don’t have negative effects on our communities.

When a closed system is pumping water up and down a hill, it’s not taking water out of a watershed, but simply reusing the same water that is already stored in the two reservoirs.

When we talk about large hydropower projects, we need to focus on how we are modernizing our hydropower fleet to improve our plants’ efficiency and environmental aspects.

Large hydropower underpins and leverages other renewable resources, which are valued partners. Large hydro is the unsung hero of grid resiliency.

It is interesting that small hydro often goes unnoticed on our rivers. It does not require large impoundments or infrastructure and has limited environmental effects. It’s important to communicate that within our communities.

Brenna Vaughn: A lot of people don’t understand how hydropower works; how it helps integrate other renewable energy sources; or the many nonpower benefits it provides, including shoreline, recreation, environmental mitigation, and habitat enhancement. Millennials and Gen Z folks are likely to have grown up learning about other renewables, such as solar and wind, in school, but not about the many benefits of hydropower. Millennials and Gen Z also tend to live in urban areas, where hydropower isn’t necessarily well known.

Hydro Leader: What are the key messages that hydro owners and operators need to communicate to the public?

Hydro Leader: Is there anything that you would like to add about hydropower as a renewable energy source?

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10 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: What trends do you see in hydropower technology and in hydropower’s role in the overall energy mix?

Brenna Vaughn: It is exciting to see how much potential hydropower holds for the nation and especially for our region. Currently, the amount of hydropower produced in the Northwest is enough to power roughly 15 Seattle-sized cities.

There is a ton of opportunity to grow that. For example, we could power all the nonpowered dams in the region, and we hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NWHA.

Brenna Vaughn: We worked with the Northwest River Partners and the Public Power Council to establish six key messages that are important for hydropower owners and operators to communicate to the public. First, hydropower provides 90 percent of the region’s renewable, carbon-free electricity. It is critical to our fight against climate change.

Second, hydropower acts as a giant green battery that allows us to add wind and solar power to the grid. Third, advanced fish passage technologies at hydropower dams can greatly improve salmon survival. Fourth, as we move away from fossil fuel resources, hydropower will likely be key to avoiding regional blackouts. Fifth, most Northwest hydropower reaches our communities through not-for-profit, communityowned utilities. Finally, the loss of clean and affordable hydropower would unfairly burden vulnerable communities.

We try to make sure that those messages are getting out and being heard again and again in our communities.

Brenna Vaughn: I think that, up until recently, renewable energies were competing with each other rather than leveraging one another’s strengths. We are seeing a big shift toward integrating our approaches and working together collaboratively rather than competitively. For example, we are seeing wind farms located near pumped storage and small hydro working with communities to integrate solar projects. I think there is a lot to gain from these types of collaborative efforts.

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Advanced fish passage technologies at hydropower dams have greatly improved salmon survival rates.

are working toward that. Currently, there are 71 nonpowered dams in our membership territory that have shown potential for the development of power. What keeps hydropower relevant in the future energy mix is that it is clean, affordable, and renewable. As other renewables grow, we need a good renewable baseload capacity so that when clouds cover a solar array or the wind stops blowing, there is a backstop. Right now, the best technology solution for that is hydropower.

Hydro Leader: What should Congress know about hydropower?

Brenna Vaughn: Congress needs to hear loud and clear that our clean energy future rests on integrating renewables and that hydropower is the cornerstone to successfully doing that.

Hydro Leader: How has the COVID‑19 pandemic affected the types of events your association is scheduling?

Brenna Vaughn: Given the COVID‑19 pandemic, the NWHA has been working with our membership to gather in small, impromptu virtual coffee chats on fast-breaking issues. It’s one thing to have a workshop twice a year, but more frequent gatherings are important. A recent example were the blackouts in the California market. We got together that same week to debrief, talk about the initial lessons, and keep our members informed. When the fires erupted in Oregon in September, we gathered our utility members together the following week to go over lessons learned and to share information.

We also hold regional workshops that focus on topics specific to the Northwest. The next one will be our 2021 annual conference, which will be held as a virtual event. The event will include all the elements that people have come to expect from the NWHA, such as highly accessible technical content and great networking opportunities. We’re bringing hydroleadermagazine.com

it to our attendees in a format called Hydro Camp, which will be a really fun spin on our event. It will be held on February 17–18, 2021. Information for this event is on our website, www.nwhydro.org.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your work across international borders.

Brenna Vaughn: Here in the Northwest, there are many opportunities to work across state lines and across entire river basins to coordinate research and fish studies and to streamline licensing. This is a replicable model. There is also a shared interest in the territories we serve in Canada, especially in the headwaters of the Columbia River. I continue to be amazed by the ingenuity and innovation that is visible worldwide. The Northwest can learn from that.

When we see floating solar arrays on a reservoir abroad, that’s something we can note and learn from.

Hydro Leader: How can people join or become more involved in the NWHA? Brenna Vaughn: The NWHA is a grassroots organization that relies on its membership. If people want to learn more about the NWHA and the spaces we are working in, they can visit our website. If what we are doing is interesting to them, we welcome new members! H Brenna Vaughn is the executive director of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association. She can be contacted at brenna@nwhydro.org.

January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Israel Water Education and Please save the date for the following scheduled tour, sponsored

by Hydro Leader, Municipal Water Leader and Irrigation Leader magazines and operated by Imagine Tours and Travel, LLC.

Projected Itinerary 1 Arrival at Ben Gurion Airport and dinner in Netanya, Israel.

2 The group will visit the Caesarea National Park and see the Roman aqueduct and water cistern, proceed to Kibbutz Maga and visit the Netafim irrigation factory, and then go to the Megiddo National Park to see the ancient water system there.

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5

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3 The group will drive north to see two of the main sources of the Jordan River, the Dan and Banias Rivers; go to the Golan Heights to see the Syrian border and Mt. Hermon; and proceed to the famous Golan Winery for a tour and wine tasting. The day will end at the Sapir site near the Sea of Galilee, where water is pumped for the National Water Carrier, the water supply system that spans the length and breadth of Israel.

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4 The group will depart Tiberias and drive to Mt. Arbel for an amazing panoramic view of the Sea of Galilee, drive to Mt. Gilboa and Kibbutz Maale Gilboa, and then proceed to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu for an agriculture bio tour.

5 During two full days in Jerusalem, the group will have the opportunity to see a wide range of historical, spiritual, and water-resources-related sites. On the first full day, the group will visit the Mount of Olives for a beautiful panoramic view over the Old City of Jerusalem, then visit the City of David, including Hezekiah’s Tunnel— brave participants can walk through the wet tunnel to the Pool of Siloam, while others can walk along the dry tunnel. The group will then drive to Armon Hanatziv to see the ancient tunnels that convey water from Solomon’s Pool to the temple.

The group will then enter the Old City to see the Western Wall tunnels, the Pool of Bethesda, and the Roman Cardo with its old wells. There will be an opportunity to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and to shop in the Old City. On the

7

14 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

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Trade Tour Preview, June 27–July 7, 2021 second day, the group will visit the Israel Museum, home of the Shrine of the Book and the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as a miniature model of Jerusalem during the First Temple period. Then the group will drive to the Sataf spring in the Judean Hills to see how the citizens of Jerusalem get a few acres to grow their own vegetables and fruits while using an ancient irrigation system that leads water between terraces and will finish by visiting the Beit Zait Reservoir and Dam. 6 The group will depart Jerusalem and drive to the Einot Zukim Nature Reserve, where there are freshwater springs and typical oasis vegetation and animal life. Next, in the desert next to the Dead Sea, which has salty water and no life at all, the group will proceed to the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, where kibbutz members pump water for their mineral water factory. The group will then visit the world heritage site of Masada, where participants can walk the snake trail by foot or ascend via cable car to see King Herod’s fortress, an ancient synagogue, a Byzantine church, and the water cistern.

7 The group will depart the Dead Sea and drive via the Arava Desert Valley to the Yair Research and Development Agriculture Center and tour the Center for Modern Desert Farming, one of the world’s most advanced. There will be a guided visit to the experimental greenhouses and a presentation of agricultural inventions to deal with the challenges of desert soil and climate. The group will then continue to the ecological Kibbutz Lotan near Eilat and learn how it transformed sandy desert soil into a green and flowering organic garden. Participants will learn basic organic and permaculture tips and practical solutions that the Center for Creative Ecology has developed over the years to treat waste, raise healthy food, save energy, and build naturally. Proceeding to Eilat, the tour group will visit a desalination facility that draws water from the Red Sea.

8 The group will depart Eilat and drive via the Ramon Crater to the Negev Desert Research and Development Center near Ashalim, which specializes in using salty water for agriculture.

The group will proceed to Kibbutz Hatzerim near Beersheba, the southern branch of the Netafim irrigation factory, and continue to the desalination facility in the Ashkelon/Ashdad region on the Mediterranean Sea. 9 We will hold a farewell dinner in Jaffa and then drive to Ben Gurion Airport for a night flight back home.

Services Included

• meeting and assistance at Ben Gurion Airport on arrival • transfer to/from Ben Gurion airport • licensed English-speaking guide for all transfers and sightseeing days • luxury air-conditioned coach • entrance fees for all visits and tours • eight nights of hotel accommodation • breakfasts and dinners at hotels and farewell dinner at local restaurant $4,707.00 per attendee (with airfare from Dulles airport) $4,319.00 per attendee (without airfare) All posted prices, services, and destinations are subject to the terms and conditions of a participant agreement.

Hydro Leader, Irrigation Leader, and Municipal Water Leader magazines are published by Water Strategies LLC. Comprehensive travelers insurance is strongly recommended.

Water Strategies is still planning for the Israel Water Education and Trade Tour, which is scheduled from June 27 through July 7, 2021. However, given the travel uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Water Strategies has decided to make a final “go or no go” decision on the tour on Monday, March 1, 2021.

As such, we encourage individuals interested in participating in the tour to register.

In the event that Water Strategies cancels the June tour on March 1, the tour will be rescheduled to the following dates: October 3 through October 13, 2021. Upon cancellation of the June tour on March 1, tour participants may choose to get their deposit back for the June tour or transfer it to the October tour.

As previously mentioned in the tour information materials, travel insurance is recommended.

January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Catrin Bryan: Advancing Dam Safety on Both Sides of the U.S.-Canada Border

18 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MCMILLEN JACOBS.

Catrin Bryan visits the Lewis County Public Utility District’s Cowlitz Falls Hydroelectric Project near Morton, Washington, accompanied by Joe First, the project’s generation manager.

C

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atrin Bryan’s experience in the field of dam safety spans both disciplinary and international boundaries.

Currently the director of dam safety at engineering and construction firm McMillen Jacobs Associates, she has also served as the president and vice president of the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) and serves as the Canadian director and as a board member of the Northwest Hydroelectric Association (NWHA). In this interview, Ms. Bryan draws from her wideranging experience in business and in professional associations to tell Hydro Leader about the present state of the field of dam safety and the differences between the Canadian and U.S. approaches to the topic.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Catrin Bryan: Because of where I grew up, close to the Peace River in Alberta, I have always had a strong interest in the outdoors and in waterways and dams. Hydropower was a normal part of life with the Bennett Dam so close by, and in many places in Canada we call our electric bill our hydro bill. I received an engineering degree from the University of British Columbia in 1990 and a graduate degree from the University of Calgary. After living and working in Calgary and then abroad for a few years, we settled in Oregon, where I worked for Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) for 10 years, initially as an operation and maintenance engineer and eventually managing EWEB’s generating facilities.

I moved back to Canada in 2011 and began working with McMillen Jacobs Associates, where I still work today. The company afforded me the opportunity to be a contributing author for the American Society of Civil Engineers’ book Monitoring Dam Performance: Instrumentation and Measurements, to contribute to the NWHA, and to serve with the CDA. I had a chance to work on the CDA’s dam safety technical bulletins and training and to serve briefly as the association’s secretarytreasurer. I then chaired the 2017 CDA conference in Kelowna, British Columbia, and I just finished serving as its vice president and then as its president. I also sit on the board of the NWHA, representing the Canadian Northwest, primarily British Columbia.

My current work focuses on dam safety, though I’ve also had a chance to do condition assessments and other hydropower plant–related work. I use everything I have learned over the past 30 years to inform my work in dam safety, including subjects like construction, budgets, staffing, training, outages, operations and maintenance, and design.

With the support of our technical team, I’ve performed dam safety work in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Manitoba, Nunavut, Oregon, and Washington.

I’m a registered professional engineer in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington and a P.Eng. in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nunavut, and Ontario. I’m grateful to the professional mentors, young and old, whom I’ve worked hydroleadermagazine.com

with over the years. They inspire me, and I truly learn something new from them every day.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about McMillen Jacobs Associates.

Catrin Bryan: Initially, I went to work for a company called McMillen, which was started by Mort and Mara McMillen.

They were passionate about technical expertise and actually building what they designed. In 2014, McMillen merged with Jacobs, a company that specialized in tunneling, becoming McMillen Jacobs. The combined company has approximately 500 employees. Our company is a truly integrated design-build company. We have construction crews that build water resources, hydropower facilities, and fish facilities. What drew me to the company was that it gave me lots of flexibility; that it focused on dams, hydropower, and fisheries; and that it could provide lifecycle expertise from design to construction to startup, commissioning, and operations and maintenance.

Hydro Leader: Would you introduce the main elements of dam safety as a field?

Catrin Bryan: I would say that it essentially refers to the science, processes, and organization necessary to ensure that a facility stores and conveys water as intended and keeps the people around and below it safe from dam failure or misoperation. It also considers potential effects on the environmental, economic, and cultural resources below the dam. Dam safety is about making sure your facility safely operates as designed and that there are processes in place to prevent dam failure or safety incidents. That can include everything from having your spillway gates operate in a reliable manner under all design conditions to making sure that you have adequate communications and access. This requires a thorough understanding of design, construction, maintenance, and operation and a knowledge of how systems can fail and what we can do to prevent failure. A team effort is typically required to adequately assess all these elements.

Hydro Leader: What do you do as the director of dam safety for McMillen Jacobs?

Catrin Bryan: I guide a team of technical people that provides dam safety services, such as inspections, assessments, reporting, and emergency planning. We also help our clients meet compliance commitments and navigate regulations.

When we perform inspections on complicated waterretaining and conveyance facilities, we often identify items that need to be improved or understood better to ensure that the facility can operate safely. In addition to inspecting the dam and appurtenant structures, we provide the owners with an opinion on all the supporting information that goes into design and operations. We develop long-term relationships with most of our dam safety clients in which we support January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Mica Dam, a hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River 84 miles north of Revelstoke, British Columbia.

and advise their dam safety programs and support their dam safety communications with regulators. The foundation of these long-term relationships is experience, trust, and a strong technical team.

Hydro Leader: You described how you work on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. Are there significant differences in the requirements for dam safety and dam inspections in the two countries?

20 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: While you were vice president and president of the CDA, were you involved in developing the organization’s dam safety or public safety programs or activities?

Catrin Bryan: Before I became vice president, I was a contributing author to the CDA’s 2016 Technical Bulletin on Dam Safety Reviews, which provides clear guidance on how to complete a dam safety review (DSR). The bulletin is available on the CDA website. After we developed that technical bulletin, we put together a workshop that we presented and continue to present across Canada and internationally. Because CDA members share the goal of advancing knowledge and practices related to all dams, our membership includes people involved in hydroelectric, irrigation, flood-control, water-supply, and mine-tailings hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

Catrin Bryan: In general, dam safety practices and ideas are similar and are often shared. What differs by country is the regulatory framework and some of the reporting requirements, though even those are quite similar. In Canada, dam safety is regulated at the provincial rather than the federal level, so the rules differ from province to province.

In addition, not all provinces are regulated; some rely on internal processes, the CDA, or other organizations for dam safety guidance. In the United States, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulates dam safety for the facilities it licenses, and there are also state-regulated dams and the dams owned and managed by federal agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means that regulations vary across the border and within each country.

I’ve found that the basics of design are similar, while the models used to understand failure modes and the probability of failure occurrence aren’t usually the same.

FERC has embraced the potential failure modes analysis model and more recently has made use of risk-informed decisionmaking and semiquantitative risk analysis. This is not the case in Canada. In Canada, practitioners use a failure matrix and, in some cases, sophisticated probabilistic models.

ADVERTISEMENT dams. In 2020, as president of the CDA, I was specifically involved in our COVID‑19 response, and with the support of committee chairs and the executive team, I provided dam safety guidance to our members as the pandemic unfolded. We are also implementing our new strategic plan, which has strong elements related specifically to dam safety. I was involved in that work as president and now as past president.

Hydro Leader: Do you think there are important things that U.S. dam and hydro owners and operators can learn from their Canadian counterparts, and vice versa?

Catrin Bryan: I think we can always learn from each other. You just have to listen and have an open mind.

One of the real pleasures I have is going back and forth across the border and sharing ideas. Here’s an example: Canadian DSRs always involve interviewing and talking with operations staff. It’s something I incorporate into my FERC part 12D inspection reports, even though it is not strictly required. I always try to meet and speak with the operations personnel.

As I mentioned earlier, the U.S. and Canadian regulators use different failure modes models. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. When I do a hazard and failure modes matrix (HFMM) for a Canadian dam, I also write a narrative for the identified possible potential failure modes, as we would in a FERC exercise, with a starting condition, initiator, and progression to failure. Conversely, in the United States, I use the Canadian-style HFMM to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MCMILLEN JACOBS.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your role in the NWHA. Catrin Bryan: The NWHA is an organization that provides a voice for the hydropower industry in the Northwest.

I serve as a board member, representing the western regions of Canada, mainly British Columbia. I search for commonalities across the border—mostly science-based commonalities rather than regulatory ones, since regulations differ. I also contribute on more-general ideas related to dam safety. Each year, with the other board members and under the leadership of our executive director, I help organize the annual conference.

To connect with our membership, I recently came up with the idea of doing a motorcycle tour of the Columbia River Treaty dams. The Columbia River is an amazing river, and the international treaty between Canada and the United States regarding certain dams and hydropower is under renegotiation. I put together an overview of the current treaty with motorcycle and dam pictures, which was super fun. Over the rest of my term, I hope to find interesting ways to present information on these cross-border issues to our membership so that members from the United States and Canada can learn more about what we have in common hydroleadermagazine.com

with respect to hydropower and dams. I’m also involved with the NWHA’s Women in Hydropower group and presented a webinar this spring.

Hydro Leader: What major trends in the hydropower industry are affecting the field of dam safety?

Catrin Bryan: Two things come to mind. First, we all know the situation we find ourselves in with aging infrastructure and the responsibilities related to that. The dam owners I work with take dam safety seriously and work hard to prioritize improvements and refurbishments to maintain facilities. However, replacing and refurbishing is expensive and complicated, so it’s a real challenge. Addressing these challenges is one important trend.

A second that is also related to aging infrastructure is that we’re using more probabilistic models to make decisions and set priorities, including decisions related to dam safety.

FERC is moving in that direction with its recent notice of proposed rulemaking, and in Canada, we’re working on updating and improving the CDA guidelines, incorporating elements of probability of occurrence.

Hydro Leader: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Catrin Bryan: Dam safety is a fascinating, broad, and multidisciplinary field. I learn something every day from other engineers and scientists as well as plant operators and staff from the technical trades, plus I get to work with highly motivated, smart, fun people. I encourage others, especially young engineers, to become involved with organizations such as the CDA, the NWHA, the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, the International Commission on Large Dams, and the United States Society on Dams. All these organizations have young professionals programs and opportunities to participate and learn.

Also, many of the dams I work on are used for storing water for hydropower. They will likely play a key role in our energy future by providing clean energy and water; by helping us integrate intermittent renewables, such as solar and wind, into our energy supply; and by improving power quality and reliability.

Finally, as a woman engineer, after all these years, I’m happy to see so many more women entering the engineering profession and specifically becoming involved in dam safety. H

Catrin Bryan is the director of dam safety at McMillen Jacobs Associates. She can be contacted at bryan@mcmjac.com.

January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Tony Bennett: Improving Public Safety Around Dams in Canada and Worldwide tells Hydro Leader about the significance of public safety around dams and the new techniques that are helping preserve lives in Canada and around the world.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Safety booms and signage are visible around OPG's 6-megawatt Seymour Falls Generating Station, located on the Trent River near Campbellford, Ontario.

Tony Bennett: I began my career at Ontario Hydro’s research division before moving to its civil engineering department in the operations branch, which I was fortunate to join just prior to the launch of the company’s dam safety program in 1986. I have held a number of roles since then, always tethered to dams, and since 2002, I have been the director of dam and public safety at OPG. During this time, OPG has supported my participation in a number of professional and industry associations. I have served on the CDA’s board of directors, including serving two terms as president, and remain a member of its dam safety committee and the chair of the working groups on public safety and emergency management, both of which report to the dam safety committee. I also serve as chair of ICOLD’s committee on public safety and participate in a number of other hydro industry forums.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about OPG as a as an agency.

Safety booms are visible above OPG’s 8-megawatt Ragged Rapids Generating Station, located near Bala, Ontario.

T

24 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your role in the CDA’s public safety work and your involvement in developing the CDA’s guidelines for public safety around dams.

Tony Bennett: OPG’s work in public safety around dams began in 2002, when we had an accident at one of our facilities on the Madawaska River. At that time, public safety was outside the realm of OPG’s dam safety program.

I was initially tasked with looking for industry guidance and standards regarding public safety around dams. What I found was that there was little guidance out there. Within hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF OPG.

ony Bennett is the longtime director of dam and public safety at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), which generates half the electricity for the Canadian province of Ontario. Over the course of his career at OPG and as a participant in the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) and the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), Mr. Bennett has played a major role in developing public safety standards on the enterprise, national, and international levels.

In particular, he played a central role in developing the CDA’s guidelines for public safety around dams. In this interview, he

Tony Bennett: OPG produces more than half the electricity used by the province of Ontario. It is a generator, not a distributor, so it does not have a specific number of customers. Between its various hydroelectric, nuclear, and other generating facilities, OPG has a capacity of 18,876 megawatts (MW). Focusing on hydropower, OPG owns 66 hydropower stations and 241 dams in the province of Ontario. Our hydropower facilities have a capacity of 7,478 MW and produced 32.5 terawatt-hours of power in 2019. Safe operation is a fundamental building block at OPG, and as such, there is a culture that really supports our dam and public safety programs.

ADVERTISEMENT North America, there was some high-level guidance that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had published in 1996 and some guidance that the Bureau of Reclamation had published in 1992. But these did not have the level of detail we felt OPG needed to establish to address the public safety hazards in a formal, managedsystem way. As a result, we put together a team and set about developing our own public safety guidance. Over the course of a year, we produced our first set of guidelines for a public safety managed system and standards on topics like safety booms, signage, and audible alerts.

Once we produced that information, dam owners and regulators from virtually the entire world started asking for copies of our guidelines, and in the interest of promoting public safety, we shared it widely. There was a growing interest within Canada in developing national guidance on this topic, so in 2006, the CDA formed a team to produce its own guidelines. Using OPG guidance as the basis and incorporating contributions from Canadian regulators, dam owners, and consultants, the CDA published a draft document in 2007. Owners started to implement the CDA draft guidelines and provided feedback, which eventually led the CDA to finalize the guidelines in 2011 and to produce supporting technical bulletins. Those guidelines closely mirror the OPG guidelines, which have also evolved as we have learned from the practice of others.

Associated with the CDA guidelines is a comprehensive, 2‑day training program. OPG staff and others have played a major role in delivering this training to over 400 dam owners, consultants, and regulators in Canada, and they have teamed up with the United States Society on Dams (USSD) to deliver it in the United States. Recently, the CDA entered into an agreement with the Korean National Committee on Large Dams to allow it to translate the Canadian guidelines into Korean and distribute them.

OPG trained two representatives from K-water in December 2019 as part of a train-the-trainer initiative so that they can begin the rollout in South Korea, further spreading the influence of the CDA guidance.

Following the release of the Canadian guidelines, ICOLD decided to establish an international committee on public safety around dams, and I was fortunate enough to be nominated as the chair. There are 26 countries that are now members of that committee, through which representatives from around the world share their practices and take what they learn back to their national dam and hydropower associations for implementation. The committee has created a database of over 1,000 incidents and conducted an international survey of practice. We are currently working to produce a set of ICOLD bulletins on public safety.

We’ve had significant contributions from Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the United States—with many other countries benefiting from the open forums and workshops that the committee has held. hydroleadermagazine.com

Safety booms and signage are visible around OPG's 4-megawatt Hagues Reach Generating Station, located on the Trent River near Campbellford, Ontario.

OPG's 92-megawatt Cameron Falls Generating Station, located near Nipigon, Ontario.

I am also a member of two U.S. public safety committees, the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, chaired

by Paul Schweiger, and the USSD, chaired by Bill Foos.

I have been asked to participate in another important initiative under the sponsorship of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to produce U.S. guidelines.

FEMA has decided to focus its first set of bulletins on signage. The sponsor from FEMA is James Demby of the agency’s Risk Analysis Division.

Hydro Leader: How are the CDA guidelines different from existing U.S. guidelines, like those of FERC? Tony Bennett: I think the CDA guidelines provide dam owners with more detailed direction for facility risk assessments than you may find in the FERC or Reclamation guidance documents. They also provide specific examples of good practice relating to signage, safety booms, audible alerts, and other control measures. The main differences are related January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT to risk assessment methodology. The CDA guidelines provide practitioners with a process to decide on the operating and physical control measures they may want to install to safely manage potential risks associated with dams and hydropower operations. It’s all couched in a managed system to ensure that whatever control measures they choose to install, they have a system in place to maintain them and regularly review their effectiveness. It’s often the case that owners install control measures but don’t implement the right inspection and maintenance practices to ensure that those measures remain in place and are functioning to control the hazards that the public may be exposed to. For example, owners need to continually reassess whether the public interactions around their facilities have changed, and if so, to adjust their control measures to accommodate these changes. The CDA guidelines take that managed-system approach.

Hydro Leader: What were some of the contributions that ICOLD members from around the world made to the ICOLD bulletins on public safety?

26 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: Would you give us some examples of how OPG has changed its approach to operations to account for public safety concerns?

Tony Bennett: I think OPG has done a great job of raising public awareness of the hazards that can occur at dams or because of hydropower operations, and it is committed to sharing the lessons it has learned with other owners, regulators, and consultants in order to reduce risks to the public. OPG is recognized as a leader in delivering public education and service announcements related to public safety. The company has supported my colleagues and me in delivering that training to people across North America and in participating in forums such as the CDA and ICOLD. We have definitely learned from others and incorporated those lessons into our program, but we also want to share and make sure that other owners improve their practice.

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve always tried to stay out in front of our public safety issues. As an example, at three of our locations at which conventional measures such as safety booms have proven challenging to maintain, we’ve installed radar systems to detect when the public may be approaching our facilities. Safety booms can be difficult to install in locations with high-flow conditions or heavy ice loads. As far as I know, radar detection systems of this type have not been installed elsewhere. One of these locations is above Niagara Falls. Through the international control works, OPG manages flow over the falls and diversions to OPG and the New York Power Authority’s plants downstream.

The area upstream of the dam has become a popular spot for jet skiers and fishing boats. Our new detection system has assisted us in deterring the public from interacting in these dangerous waters and in keeping safe people whose vessels have become disabled in the high-flow conditions.

OPG has also supported the international database on incidents and fatalities. One interesting observation is that the data show a noticeable decrease in fatalities—from an average of six fatalities a year to one or two—since the CDA guidelines were published and training began in October 2011. I realize that the drop from six to one or two doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you’re one of those people or are related to one of them, it’s an awful lot. We at OPG are proud to be part of that change. I think it demonstrates that that these guidelines are effective and that owners are taking public safety seriously. H Tony Bennett is the director of public safety at Ontario Power Generation. He can be contacted at tony.bennett@opg.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF OPG.

Tony Bennett: The French utility Électricité de France has developed excellent guidance on public safety measures and incident reporting. Its guidance requires owners to have what is referred to as a perfect understanding of the river, and it really focuses on carrying out hydraulic assessments that help owners understand the effects that changes in flow have on water levels and velocities downstream, and hence on the safety of the public downstream. In France, a big effort has also been made to establish what are called safety guides, which primarily involves university students working during the summer months to patrol rivers and educate the public about the hazards that may take place there.

In Japan, there are a lot of flashy rivers—the steep terrain and high rainfall events there can create flash floods, which means that dams need to be able to accommodate high inflows through spillway gate operations. The Japanese regulators have established some of the most definitive criteria around the allowable rates of rise of downstream water levels and changes in flow levels. For example, I believe their standard limits operators to a rise of 30 centimeters in 30 minutes in sections of the river downstream from dams.

In Sweden, as in a number of European countries, the public holds a legal right to roam, which is very different from the situation here in North America, where there are generally trespass-to-property rights for owners. In Europe, the owner of a hydropower facility or a piece of land doesn’t have the same right to exclude members of the public, even from areas that might be potentially dangerous. That requires owners to accommodate the possibility of public access in their controls and really work closely with their communities and the public to help them understand the risks associated with dams.

The Norwegians and Australians have both adopted some simplified risk assessment methods, which have good

applications for many dam owners and have proven effective at controlling risks to the public.

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The International Committee on Large Dams’ World Declaration on Dam Safety education, I went through the co-op program and got a job at an engineering company in Chicago that specialized in dams and hydropower, Harza Engineering Company. Harza was subsequently acquired by Montgomery Watson, forming MWH, which was subsequently acquired by Stantec, where I currently work. I’ve essentially been with the same company for more than 40 years. I work exclusively in the field of dams and hydropower engineering. My specialties at Stantec are dam safety, dam rehabilitation, and the structural improvements of concrete dams using roller-compacted concrete, which is a modern material used in building concrete dams.

I’m currently the vice president of Stantec and a global practice leader for dam engineering. As part of my work in the industry, I started going to professional conferences with the USSD. I became active in the USSD’s concrete dam technical committee and sat on the board of directors. I have also served as the USSD’s vice president and president.

USSD is one of the 104 national organizations that are part of ICOLD. I also served as chair of both the USSD’s and ICOLD’s technical committees on concrete dams.

I helped organize ICOLD’s successful conference in the United States in 2013, and based on that experience, I was elected vice president of ICOLD and served a 3‑year term.

After that, I ran for president and was elected in 2018. I am serving a 3‑year term as president that will finish at the time of our 2021 annual meeting.

Michael Rogers speaks at the 90th annual ICOLD meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2018.

M

ichael Rogers is an experienced civil engineer with 40 years of experience at Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., currently serving as the global practice leader for dams. Mr. Rogers has served in prominent roles in the United States Society on Dams (USSD) and the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), of the latter of which he is currently president. During his time as ICOLD president, the organization has released a World Declaration on Dam Safety, which seeks to summarize and promote the dam safety knowledge collected by the 104 nationally based ICOLD member organizations all over the world. In this interview, Mr. Rogers tells Hydro Leader about the state of the global dam safety practice.

Michael Rogers: I am a civil engineer. I went to college at Illinois Institute of Technology, and as part of that

28 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Michael Rogers: Stantec is an international consulting engineering firm, active in a broad range of areas: transportation, building improvements, interior, and environmental. I work in the power and dams division, which includes thermal power, wind power, and hydroelectric power. My specific group is hydroelectric power and dams.

At Stantec, we firmly believe that communities are fundamental. Whether around the corner or across the globe, they provide a foundation, a sense of place and of belonging. That’s why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind. We care about the communities we serve—because they’re our communities too. We are designers, engineers, scientists, and project managers, innovating together at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. Balancing these priorities results in projects that advance the quality of life in communities across the globe. Stantec trades on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges under the symbol STN. The Stantec community unites hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ICOLD.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about Stantec as a company?

approximately 22,000 employees working in over 350 locations across 6 continents and is headquartered in Edmonton in Alberta, Canada.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about ICOLD’s history and its main activities today?

Michael Rogers: ICOLD was formed more than 90 years ago by a collection of countries that were starting to develop larger and larger dams. The technology that goes into building large dams is significantly more advanced than the technology for small dams, and it was recognized that more-developed countries, such as France, the UK, and the United States, were leading the way in research and design criteria for these large dams. It was necessary to share that knowledge with the world to ensure a common understanding of the state of the practice and to ensure the safety of the development of dams from the social and environmental standpoints.

ICOLD started in 1928 with member organizations from just five countries and has grown as more national

the world. This allows countries where there’s a lot of work being done, like China, which is currently leading the world in developing larger dams and hydroelectricity, to share knowledge and technology with other areas of the world, especially developing countries that are just beginning to develop their water resources for renewable hydroelectricity, water supply, and flood control.

Hydro Leader: Is it accurate to say that ICOLD sets standards and guidelines, or is its work better described as information sharing?

Michael Rogers: Information sharing. We document the state of the practice, including general guidelines for development of dams and hydro projects in areas such as structural engineering and hydraulics for spillways. We don’t establish design criteria, but we set guidelines based on state of the practice and lessons learned from around the world, including from reputable organizations such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which are active in ICOLD. Hydro Leader: What are some of the main methods of information sharing?

Michael Rogers at Oroville Dam in October 2017.

organizations have joined. This year, three new countries joined—Kyrgyzstan, Laos, and Mongolia. As more countries have joined ICOLD, the organization has gained more knowledge of the state of the practice for engineering dams and levees. We’ve grown from focusing solely on large dams to focusing on dams and levees of all sizes and types.

We have 28 technical committees in which volunteer members meet and document the lessons they have learned and the state of the practice of dam engineering around hydroleadermagazine.com

Michael Rogers: During our annual meeting, we have technical sessions and symposia on different aspects of dam design and share recent lessons learned.

Every 3 years, we hold a congress that addresses specific questions related to a topic of interest. In 2021, we will hold our 3‑year congress in Marseille, France.

It will address specific questions on climate change and other environmental aspects of dams; structural engineering for concrete dams; incidents and accidents concerning dams; and surveillance, instrumentation, monitoring, and data acquisition for dam safety.

The 28 technical committees themselves work more on long-term tasks, collecting knowledge and lessons through their professional communities and then publishing them in lesson plans and technical bulletins. We make our bulletins available to member countries free of charge.

We also sell them to universities and other entities outside ICOLD countries. The documents are routinely used by dam professionals during the design and construction of dams as references on the state of the practice and guidelines for the safe development of dams.

Hydro Leader: Why did ICOLD decide to release the World Declaration on Dam Safety?

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The ICOLD board visits Colorado State University’s hydraulics laboratory in January 2020.

Michael Rogers: I started my tenure as president in 2018, after a number of high-profile dam incidents around the world, including the 2017 Oroville spillway incident in the United States. As president, I thought it would be worthwhile for ICOLD to develop a World Declaration on Dam Safety to reaffirm our commitment to the safe development of dams around the world. The declaration touches a few different areas, including ICOLD’s longterm mission and commitment to dam safety and the changing conditions of dam safety around the world, specifically in more-developed countries. The declaration also talks about the most important aspects of dam safety, including structural integrity, surveillance and monitoring, instrumentation, and basic design, and discusses what it means to have a successful dam safety program.

At Oroville, the periodic safety inspections and assessments of the dam were done better than they are at most projects around the world. However, the engineers had lost sight of the original design intent of the project, which is what ultimately contributed to the incident. Sharing the pillars of dam safety and laying out the changing conditions of dam safety are ICOLD’s way of reminding our members and ourselves that dam safety isn’t something to be taken for granted.

Hydro Leader: Now that it has released the statement, does ICOLD have specific activities that it will undertake to disseminate it and promote its message?

30 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: What are the challenges that different countries face when it comes to dam safety, and how do those differ in developed and developing countries?

Michael Rogers: There are different challenges that affect how dams are developed, designed, and refurbished in different countries around the world. Developed countries such as the United States have an aging dam inventory with an average age of almost 60 years. We have to be certain that our dams continue to meet their design intent. Moreover, in the case of dams that were developed for specific conditions that have now gone away or dams that can no longer be maintained in a safe and reliable manner, it may make sense to remove them.

For 40‑ to 50‑year-old dams in the United States, the challenges are balancing the continuing costs of maintaining the dam in a safe operating condition and protecting the people downstream, the environmental effects of the dam, and the benefits the dam provides. In some areas, the answers are changing. In some places, new features are being added to existing dams. For example, adding a hydropower project onto a lock and dam on the Mississippi or Ohio River makes it more beneficial.

Other countries have only recently begun to develop their water resources. For example, a lot of countries in Africa are trying to modernize their societies by providing access to clean, renewable power; water supplies; and flood control services.

A dam owner in Africa is going to have completely different challenges than one in the United States when it comes to developing a dam and balancing its social and environmental aspects. Building a dam on a river usually has a large social effect, because people tend to live along rivers, and some of those areas may end up being flooded. The challenge is to hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ICOLD.

Michael Rogers: Yes. We have distributed the document to all 104 national member organizations and have asked that they share it with all their members. Overall, ICOLD’s national member organizations have a total of more than 15,000 members. One of the other ways we get the word out about the ICOLD World Declaration on Dam Safety is by going to other conferences to share it with organizations that are supported by or that support ICOLD. One of those organizations is Aqua-Media, which publishes The International Journal on Hydropower & Dams. It held a Hydro 2020 Conference, which was supposed to be in

Strasbourg, France, but ended up being virtual. As an invited keynote speaker, I gave a speech on the ICOLD position on enhancing dam safety with specific reference to the World Declaration on Dam Safety. I’ve given similar speeches and keynote talks to conferences about the declaration in China and other countries around the world.

ADVERTISEMENT balance those social and environmental costs with the benefit that is going to be provided by a dam for future generations.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the effects of climate change on dam safety?

Michael Rogers: We know the climate is always changing.

We try to adapt our dam design criteria to our knowledge of changing climate conditions as we develop our projects.

For example, seismic design is based on historic earthquakes.

The more earthquakes that occur, the more we understand about where faults are located, how big those faults are, and their potential for causing structural damage. Climate change is similar in that as time goes by, we learn more and more about changing climate patterns. Some areas are becoming wetter and getting more rain and higher flows, and some are becoming drier and warmer and getting less flow.

Dams can help moderate those changes. For example, in an area where changing rainfall patterns are delivering the same amount of water but over a longer period of time, dams can store water during periods with excess water and release it during dry periods. However, we have to be careful that our designs can adapt to the extreme events. Highhazard projects around the world have guidelines designed for maximum credible events, but when the climate is changing, sometimes those are moving targets. We have to adapt our design criteria to climate change. In some areas, that requires creating spillway or operational conditions that can pass floods higher than what is currently predicted or foreseen in a specific design period. For example, in certain areas, spillways must be designed for the 1‑in‑5,000‑year flood. But if we take climate change into consideration, we could design for an even more extreme event, like a 1‑in‑10,000‑year flood, or a greater one.

Hydro Leader: Would you provide some examples of how knowledge on dam safety issues is transferred through ICOLD? Michael Rogers: ICOLD shares its information in a couple of different ways. One way is through our conferences. A lot of lessons were learned from the 2017 Oroville spillway failure, both about assessing dam safety and about recovering from a major, catastrophic event in a timely manner. ICOLD shared those lessons with the rest of the world in June 2018.

Following the successful first year of the Oroville spillway project’s return to operation, ICOLD worked with the owner and other engineers to sponsor a special symposium and released a series of papers on different aspects of the incident that could be shared with the world. It was one of our most highly attended conferences. We talked about the underlying issues that led to the failure, the emergency action planning, the responses to the failure, and the technical design of the roller-compacted concrete spillway materials that were used to replace the rock that had been eroded and to provide a sound hydroleadermagazine.com

foundation for the spillway. Those lessons were shared with countries around the world.

Another way we share information is by supporting countries like India that are just now developing national dam safety programs. India has the third-largest inventory of dams in the world, but there was no national dam safety program—responsibility for dam safety lay at the state level.

ICOLD worked with our member organization in India, the Indian National Committee on Large Dams, to support its Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Program (DRIP), which aims to develop a common, nationwide program of dam safety. Working with the World Bank, the DRIP program has been able to document the situation, lay out the requirements of dam safety in India, and get funding for some basic safety improvements to existing projects.

When Malaysia joined ICOLD 2 years ago, it had no national dam safety program. Now, with the support of ICOLD and using ICOLD bulletins, the country has developed its own nationwide program for dam safety.

Malaysia also called on ICOLD-affiliated experts to provide support, build capacity, and train its engineers. The Canadian Dam Association, for example, provided an array of experts to support the Malaysian National Committee at ICOLD in its development of national dam safety standards.

Hydro Leader: How will ICOLD be holding its 2021 events amid the COVID‑19 pandemic?

Michael Rogers: It is a moving target, obviously, as the whole world is pivoting toward the availability of vaccines.

ICOLD is an international organization that is dependent on international travel for our meetings and annual conferences. Right now, we’re planning to hold our June 2021 International Congress in Marseille, France. We’re hopeful that with the vaccine, travel next summer will be viable. If necessary, it can be postponed to November 2021.

Our April 2020 in-person conference in New Delhi, India, was postponed to September 2020, postponed again to December 2020, and then postponed even further, to 2023. Instead, we held a virtual general assembly of all 104 countries on Zoom. In that meeting, we took care of the regular business, elections, and voting that were necessary to keep our organization moving forward and to meet our legal requirements. It was good, but we miss getting together.

We enjoy having our technical discussions and our face-toface discussions both in our formal conference session and informally during breaks, dinners, and so forth. H Michael Rogers is the president of the International Commission on Large Dams. He can be contacted at michael.rogers@stantec.com.

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Luc Deroo of ISL: Addressing 21st Century Challenges for Dams and Reservoirs

ISL was the contractor for the construction of the Clapeys small hydro plant, located in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the French Alps.

L

uc Deroo is the managing director of ISL, a French consulting engineering firm that is active in dam and reservoir work across Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is also involved in the French Committee on Dams and Reservoirs and in the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD).

His work in ICOLD particularly focuses on emerging challenges for reservoirs linked to demographic change, climate change, and technological advances. In this interview, Mr. Deroo tells Hydro Leader about his work and his outlook on the future of the hydropower industry.

Hydro Leader: Tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Luc Deroo: I’m the managing director of ISL, a consulting engineering company based in France that is active in the fields of dams, hydropower, water resources, and related activities. We are active in Europe, Africa, and Asia. I’m also involved in international organizations like ICOLD. I am the chair of ICOLD’s technical committee dealing with emerging challenges for reservoirs. I also work on hydropower and dams conferences. I sit on the steering committee of these conferences and chair sessions, which focus mainly on innovation. I have spent some time working in Africa, especially in Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.

Luc Deroo: ISL is not a big company. It has 120 employees, most of them in France and maybe 20–25 in other countries

34 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: You’re also involved in the French Committee on Dams and Reservoirs. Would you tell us about that organization?

Luc Deroo: It is the French member organization of ICOLD. It is mainly active in the field of dam safety, largely because there are not a lot of new dams being built in France. The people involved in the committee focus on safety issues related to the existing dam and levee portfolio in our country. The committee is also active in sharing experience on projects abroad through technical exchanges.

Another of the committee’s current activities is the preparation of the next ICOLD congress, which will be held in Marseille, France, in 2021. During this congress, there will be a symposium prepared by the French committee entitled “Sharing Water: Multipurpose Reservoirs and Innovations.” Multipurpose reservoirs are, for instance, reservoirs that are used both for hydropower and for water resources.

Hydro Leader: You are the chair of the ICOLD Technical Committee on Prospective and New Challenges for Dams and Reservoirs in the 21st Century. What are these hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISL.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about ISL as a company?

in Europe and Africa. We’re active in Western Europe, Africa, and Asia. We work on hydropower projects— both greenfield projects and the improvement of existing hydropower plants—and dam and reservoir projects. We focus on the latter in countries like Algeria and Tunisia, where they tend to focus on water resources, since they don’t have enough water for hydropower.

ADVERTISEMENT prospective and new challenges for the 21st century, and how do they differ from 20th-century challenges?

Luc Deroo: The pace of the construction of new reservoirs has decreased in many countries in the world, while the need for water and renewable electricity has increased. That means that there is a disconnect between needs and the reality of reservoir construction today. This was the starting point of this committee. The question it addresses is how to make dams and reservoirs a key component of addressing the challenges of the 21st century.

What are these challenges? One is demography: We have to feed, provide water to, and provide cheap electricity to quite a lot of people, many of whom don’t have access to those resources even now. Climate change is also a gamechanger for water resources and renewable energy. Also, we believe that dams and reservoirs, though they have some adverse effects, can also help foster biodiversity. People don’t usually think of dams and reservoirs having that effect, but they should, because freshwater environments contain ecological habitats of high importance for biodiversity. We know that reservoirs have a negative effect on biodiversity because they obstruct rivers, but they also have a positive effect because of their capacity to provide water in dry seasons. Better addressing these challenges may pave the way for new types of reservoirs and new ways of thinking about dams’ effects on biodiversity.

Luc Deroo: I’m quite sure they will be. This is, in my opinion, a major change that has occurred in recent years. The integration of solar power and hydropower is particularly important. For instance, the World Bank asked ISL to assess the opportunities for solar-hydro integration in Western Africa, including in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali, where electricity is expensive and there are not enough appropriate places for additional hydro projects but there is a lot of sun. Those countries are thinking about solar power, but their grids and networks are not strong enough to integrate a large share of solar energy. Our assessment showed that integrating existing hydropower plants and new solar plants at the same location could be an efficient solution to that problem. With certain projects, we’re at the point where integrated solar-hydro power plants could replace thermal power plants of several hundred megawatts (MW). That’s something that’s been initiated in various places in the world, and in the future, we’ll see specific projects based on this idea of integration.

Next week, our ICOLD committee will meet, focusing specifically on that topic. It has attracted quite a lot of interest from the dam community and the solar community, specifically the floating solar community.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LUC DEROO.

Hydro Leader: How does climate change affect dams and reservoirs, and how do you see them changing to address that?

Luc Deroo: Climate change interacts with dams and reservoirs in three areas: mitigation, adaptation, and direct effects on infrastructure. Reservoirs can help mitigate climate change by providing hydropower, which is a renewable resource, and supporting the development of solar and wind power. Solar and wind power are intermittent and unpredictable. They need storage, which can naturally be provided by reservoirs. In terms of adaptation, we know that climate change affects water resources. Extreme events and dry spells are more common today. Dams and reservoirs can provide benefits like water storage and flood mitigation and can protect coastal cities. Eventually, climate change will directly affect infrastructure. Climate change changes the water regimes of many rivers, which affects hydropower production. All these effects are interconnected, and devising projects that integrate all three of these aspects is the most efficient way to combat climate change.

Hydro Leader: You mentioned the integration of hydropower with other renewable sources. Do you see facilities in the future being constructed specifically with that integration in mind? hydroleadermagazine.com

A diagram for an integrated floating solar–hydro power plant.

Hydro Leader: Is pumped storage also a major part of that conversation?

Luc Deroo: Yes. Pumped storage is key, because we cannot develop solar and wind generation without storage. There are three options on the table. One is pumped storage— reservoirs storing power in the form of water. A second is having a grid strong enough to withstand these intermittent sources of electricity and to balance them among countries, which is what Europe is trying to do. The third is developing alternative storage methods using batteries, hydrogen, compressed air, and so on. Pumped storage won’t January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ISL was the consultant for the new Ramdane Djamel Dam in Algeria.

be the only option, and we have to be aware of that. There is some argument about which methods to use and why.

We have to devise new ideas and new methods to make pumped storage a bit cheaper and more adapted to the different contexts we have in various countries, including countries where there are no mountains. One way to do this is to associate with solar power plants, making use of existing reservoirs. French engineer François Lempérière showed the immense potential of such combinations, for instance with the twin dams concept. Another idea is to use seawater for pumped storage in projects along the coast.

A third idea would be to devise pumped storage power plants that have other purposes as well—plants that could be used not only to store electricity but also to perform flood protection functions or to store water for other uses, including biodiversity support.

Hydro Leader: Are any large dams or reservoirs being planned in France today, whether for water supply, hydropower generation, or pumped storage?

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about your work with tidal energy?

36 | HYDRO LEADER | January 2021

Hydro Leader: What is distinctive about the hydropower industry in France, and how does it differ from the hydropower industry in the United States and in other countries?

Luc Deroo: In France, the industry is mainly focused on the maintenance and improvement of existing power plants.

Utilities want to improve their power plants to make them more efficient; to allow them to generate more kilowatthours; and to make them more flexible, especially so that hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISL,

Luc Deroo: There are some being planned, but that does not mean that they will be constructed. Today, France relies primarily on nuclear power and is working to enhance its network to integrate solar and wind as well. In addition, electricity prices have decreased a lot across Europe. Europe has an excess of power production capacity, so prices are low, and nobody is really thinking about constructing new hydropower plants. However, like other Western European countries, we have quite a few small power plants under construction, and there are several pumped storage plants that may be started in Europe in 2021 or 2022.

Luc Deroo: The history of tidal energy in France goes back to the 1960s, when a tidal project was built on the Rance river estuary in Brittany. However, it was the only one ever built, because France decided to pursue nuclear energy as its primary energy source. Recently, there has been renewed interest in tidal energy. In the UK, a 300 MW project has been developed near Cardiff called the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. Seeing that this project had the approval of many stakeholders, including the local government, the local population, and nongovernmental organizations like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Foundation–UK, we thought that we might be able to do something similar in France. A small group led by French energy utility Électricité de France and including various professionals started to prepare a report entitled Energy in France.

The group found that there were opportunities at quite competitive prices. However, the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project was postponed, and today in France, there isn’t the need for new electricity production capacity.

One possibility for the future may be combining tidal energy and coastal protection. That combination may make such projects more attractive. There are currently one or two ongoing projects in France that would combine coastal protection not with tidal, but with wave energy.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF ISL AND NATHALIE OUNDJIAN.

ISL performed the implementation study and monitored the construction of the new Kissir Dam in Algeria, which is located less than a mile from the Mediterranean Sea.

they can adapt to rapid fluctuations of the network and to changes in the market price of electricity.

Another issue is achieving hybridization with solar by interconnecting existing hydropower plants with solar power plants so that they can deliver electricity to the grid when it is most needed, namely when the electricity prices are higher.

The third issue is protecting the environment and preserving biodiversity. That encompasses various operations, such as removing old structures. We carry out far fewer removal operations than in the United States, but we do have some old structures that we need to remove. In some places, we are also changing the use and operation of power plants to mitigate effects downstream, including by reducing rapid variations of discharge, providing additional discharge, and causing artificial floods downstream to benefit biodiversity.

There is also something that in Europe is called ecological continuity, meaning letting fish migrate upstream and letting sediment go downstream. A lot of the structures on rivers have been modified to allow these things to happen. Another thing that ties into this topic is small hydro. There is a strong trend toward the use of small hydro equipment on existing small dams and weirs. Many existing small dams are being equipped with turbines to capture energy.

Hydro Leader: What is your outlook on the future of the energy?

to change the way we look at hydropower, dam, and reservoir projects. Today, these projects are assessed in terms of monetary cost and profits. However, dams and hydropower plants, especially when there are reservoirs included, have negative effects on biodiversity that cannot be quantified in monetary terms. On the other hand, they also provide big benefits for the population and for the environment that are also not easy to quantify.

An advance in our methods that would allow us to take account of these externalities would majorly change the way we see these projects and how they perform. It might also make a big difference in the way we operate existing projects. In Africa and southern Europe today, water is much more valuable as a resource for consumption and agricultural use than it is as an input for hydropower production. If we can communicate that new hydropower projects provide benefits in those areas as well, it can make hydropower projects more competitive against solar or wind, which do not have the same external benefits for societies and environment. H

Luc Deroo is the managing director of ISL. For more about ISL, visit www.isl.fr/en.

Luc Deroo: In my opinion, one thing that could be a big trigger for changes in the near future would be hydroleadermagazine.com

January 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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USSD Members Represent: - Dam and levee owners - Consulting firms - Water districts - Utilities - Contractors - Government agencies - Colleges and universities - International organizations

USSD VISION: A world where all dams and levees are safe and valued by the communities they serve

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USSD offers a wide variety of technical knowledge exchange through an annual conference, workshops and webinars. It also publishes a quarterly members only USSD Dams & Levees Bulletin.

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