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Dusty Myers: Ensuring Dam Safety at Eagle Creek Renewable Energy
Eagle Creek operates the Narrows Dam on the Yadkin River near Badin, North Carolina.
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agle Creek Renewable Energy owns and operates 86 hydroelectric projects across the United States, representing about 620 megawatts (MW) of power capacity. A wholly owned subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Eagle Creek recently merged with Cube Hydro Partners, expanding its portfolio and its capacities. In this interview, Dusty Myers, Eagle Creek’s chief dam safety engineer, tells us about the company’s hydro assets, his team’s work, and the regulatory trends that are shaping the dam safety field.
Dusty Myers: My career in dam safety has included stints as a regulator at the state level; at a federal dam owner; and now at a private dam owner, Eagle Creek. I graduated from Mississippi State University in December 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and received a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Jackson State University in 2010. After graduating from Mississippi State,
14 | HYDRO LEADER | March 2021
PHOTOS COURTESY OF EAGLE CREEK RENEWABLE ENERGY.
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
I accepted a position with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), performing surface water quality modeling for impaired water bodies within the state. In November 2007, I transitioned into dam safety by accepting a position with the dam safety division of MDEQ as a staff dam safety engineer. When I started with MDEQ dam safety, the program was responsible for the regulation of approximately 3,800 dams around the state of Mississippi. As time progressed, I began to get more involved in the dam safety community through the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO), first as a member of the newly formed dam failures and incidents committee in 2010 and then as a southeast regional representative to the ASDSO board of directors in 2011. I served on the ASDSO board of directors from 2011 to 2019 and was president of the association from 2016 to 2017. Throughout my time on the board, I was highly involved in a lot of other ongoing work with the association and served as a member or chair in nine task groups or committees. I continue to be involved with ASDSO as a member of the dam failures and incidents
