Hydro Leader November/December 2021

Leader ydro H VOLUME 2 ISSUE 10

november/december 2021

Representative Annie Kuster on the Twenty-First Century Dams Act

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Representative Annie Kuster on the TwentyFirst Century Dams Act

Contents

November/December 2021 Volume 2, Issue 10 5 S upporting the Future of Hydropower

By Kris Polly

22 C anyon Hydro: CustomDesigning Efficient Small Hydro Turbines

8 Representative

Annie Kuster on the TwentyFirst Century Dams Act

26 O iles America’s Specialty Products for the Hydro Market

14 Unexpected

Interim Results in the Independent Investigation of the 2020 Breaches of Edenville and Sanford Dams

THE INNOVATORS 32 Nering Industries’ Hydroelectric Water Wheel 38 JOB LISTINGS

18 C helan Public Utility District Plans for the Relicensing of Rock Island Dam

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.

4 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

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 Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Intern 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 kris.polly@waterstrategies.com or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@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 us at admin@waterstrategies.com.

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COVER PHOTO:

Representative Annie Kuster.

Photo courtesy of the Office of Annie Kuster.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF ANNIE KUSTER.

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

Hydro Leader

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Supporting the Future of Hydropower

F

or our cover story, we have the honor of interviewing Representative Annie Kuster of New Hampshire.

Representative Kuster was the cosponsor in the House of Representatives of the Twenty-First Century Dams Act, which would invest over $25 billion in dam upgrades, dam safety measures, and hydropower tax credits. The bill has bipartisan backing and is supported by both hydropower industry groups and environmental groups.

We also feature a fascinating interview with consultant John France, who is leading the independent forensic investigation into the 2019 failure of Sanford and Edenville Dams in central Michigan. The independent forensic team has released an interim report that identifies static liquefaction as a major factor in the breach of Edenville Dam—an unexpected finding with significant repercussions for the dam industry.

We speak with Janel Ulrich of Washington State’s Chelan Public Utility District about the process of relicensing its Rock Island Hydroelectric Project, including how it brings stakeholders together to find creative solutions for ensuring safety, protecting wildlife, and providing recreational opportunities.

Canyon Hydro is a Bellingham, Washington–based manufacturer of custom hydro turbines, including micro hydro installations that can aid rural, off-grid communities or power remote buildings. Brett Bauer, Canyon’s vice president of engineering, tells us more.

By Kris Polly

We also interview Kurt Garvey, the senior account manager of specialty markets for the Oiles America Corporation, about the company’s self-lubricating wear components, which are currently used at more than 2,000 hydroelectric installations around the world.

Finally, we speak with Marc Nering, a British Columbia– based hydropower consultant and manager who designed and built a power-generating waterwheel in his spare time.

Mr. Nering explains the design and construction of the waterwheel and discusses its potential for use in remote and off-grid locations.

All these professionals are supporting the future of the hydropower industry, whether by advocating for legislation that would support dams across the nation, deepening our knowledge of dams and their potential failure modes, doing long-term planning for existing structures, providing top-of-the-line equipment, or creating new and innovative devices. 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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Representative Annie Kuster on the Twenty-First Century Dams Act

On August 26, 2021, Representative Kuster toured the Wilder Dam in Lebanon, New Hampshire, with energy and conservation leaders.

I

8 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

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

Representative Annie Kuster: My interest in energy and environmental issues stems from my time at Dartmouth College, when I developed my own environmental policy studies special major, studying with Professor Donella Meadows, author of the renowned book Limits to Growth. After college, I worked for environmental leader Representative Pete McCloskey of California on Capitol Hill before attending law school at Georgetown University.

Upon graduation from law school, I moved back to hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF ANN KUSTER.

n July, Representatives Annie Kuster and Don Young introduced the bipartisan Twenty-First Century Dams Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, with a companion bill introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Dianne Feinstein. The bill would promote safety, increase green energy generation, and protect the environment by investing over $25 billion in upgrading the nation’s federal dams and improving the safety of nonpowered nonfederal dams while also creating a new hydropower tax credit to promote needed dam upgrades. In this interview, Representative Annie Kuster tells us about the goals of the act, why it has bipartisan and industry support, and the role hydropower can play in the clean energy grid of the future.

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On August 26, 2021, during a tour of the Wilder Dam in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Representative Kuster discussed our nation’s energy future and her bipartisan legislation, the Twenty-First Century Dams Act, with energy experts and conservation leaders.

New Hampshire and practiced law in Concord for 25 years before running for Congress.

Hydro Leader: What role do dams and hydropower facilities play in your home district?

Representative Annie Kuster: Hydropower plays an important role in New Hampshire and the broader New England region as a major source of renewable energy and a critical backup for the energy grid. Hydropower makes up 6 percent of New Hampshire’s total energy generation and a little less than half of our renewable portfolio.

Some of these facilities are particularly important to the broader New England grid because of their black start and rapid dispatch capabilities. In extreme weather events, New England counts on hydropower to back up the grid, keep our lights on, and prevent cold weather events from turning into a crisis.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the Twenty-First Century Dams Act. What are the main needs that it addresses? hydroleadermagazine.com

Representative Annie Kuster: The United States has more than 90,000 dams, only a fraction of which (roughly 2,500) are equipped to generate hydropower. Some of our dams have safety issues that need to be resolved, and more than 6,000 are considered high-hazard dams with poor or unknown safety ratings. Some of the dams need to be repaired to improve their power output or could be retrofitted to generate electricity.

Other dams have outlived their useful purpose and should be removed because their continued existence undermines the well-being of important river ecosystems.

The Twenty-First Century Dams Act is a historic effort to rehabilitate, retrofit, or remove the nation’s dams, as appropriate, addressing all three of these concerns. We call these the three Rs. My bill provides funding to improve dam safety by repairing dams, to increase clean energy production by retrofitting hydropower dams, and to enhance the health of our nation’s rivers by removing dams that have outlived their useful purpose.

Hydro Leader: What sorts of investments are part of the act?

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Representative Annie Kuster: The legislation invests $11 billion in upgrading our nation’s powered and nonpowered federal dams to increase power output and improve safety. It also creates a new hydropower tax credit, estimated to deliver roughly $4.7 billion to reward hydropower dam owners that make investments in environmental, safety, grid resilience, and electricity production upgrades at their facilities. The bill also invests more than $16.5 billion in improving the safety of nonpowered nonfederal dams.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the environmental aspects of the act.

Representative Annie Kuster: The Twenty-First Century Dams Act makes an important $7.5 billion investment in removing dams that have outlived their useful purpose. The United States has more than 90,000 dams, many of which have outlived their useful purpose. New Hampshire, for example, has more than 2,500 dams across the state.

By investing in removing dams that have outlived their useful purpose, we can improve the health of our nation’s river ecosystems by returning aquatic environments to their natural state and enhancing opportunities for recreation, including swimming, canoeing, and kayaking.

The bill provides important guardrails to make sure that no dam is removed without the consent of the dam owner, and the legislation prohibits any funding for the removal of powered federal dams.

Hydro Leader: How did the provisions of the act emerge from the discussions and negotiations of Stanford University’s Uncommon Dialogue?

Representative Annie Kuster: I worked closely with my friend from Dartmouth, Dan Reicher, and the participants in Stanford University’s Uncommon Dialogue to craft this legislation. This bill is a direct byproduct of their efforts to find common ground between the river conservation and hydropower communities about how we can preserve and increase hydropower energy resources to help the country meet its clean energy goals while improving the health of our nation’s rivers to create healthier waterway ecosystems.

Hydro Leader: What economic effect would the act have?

10 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

Representative Annie Kuster: I think it was the robust support from industry and environmental groups that helped make this legislation bipartisan. This is a truly unique moment in which we have groups that have historically been diametrically opposed to hydropower stepping forward and saying it needs to be part of our clean energy future. At the same time, you have the hydropower industry saying that it recognizes that some of our nation’s 90,000 dams should be removed. It’s a truly historic moment, and I think we need to help lawmakers on both sides of the aisle recognize this tremendous opportunity to transform a critical component of America’s infrastructure.

Hydro Leader: What are the current prospects for H.R. 4375, and what are the next steps you will take to move it forward?

Representative Annie Kuster: With robust support across all the relevant committees of jurisdiction, I am optimistic we can find a path forward for the Twenty-First Century Dams Act. I am going to continue talking with my colleagues about this legislation to ensure that they recognize what a unique opportunity it represents to improve dam safety, increase clean energy output, and enhance the health of river ecosystems.

Hydro Leader: What role do you see hydropower having in the grid of the future?

Representative Annie Kuster: Hydropower has an essential role to play in our future power grid. As I referenced earlier, as we move from a grid where power is primarily generated by centralized carbon-based sources of energy with predictable power output toward a variable renewable energy grid, hydropower can help back up other clean energy resources to ensure reliable electricity output. The fact that hydropower can accomplish this without any carbon emissions is essential to helping the country meet net zero carbon emissions by 2050. H

Annie Kuster represents New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. For more about Representative Kuster, visit kuster.house.gov/.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF ANNIE KUSTER.

Representative Annie Kuster: The rehabilitation, retrofit, and removal provisions of the bill are estimated to support more than 450,000 jobs. Importantly, the legislation is an investment in protecting against catastrophic dam failures by repairing our nation’s more than 6,000 high-hazard dams.

One catastrophic dam failure could have serious financial repercussions for the communities downstream, and this legislation aims to protect against that. It’s also an investment in healthy, free-flowing rivers that are more resilient in extreme weather events and can mitigate the risk of destructive flooding events.

Finally, it’s a down payment on ensuring we preserve hydropower as a low-cost, clean energy resource that can help us better integrate other renewable resources into our electric grid. The economic benefits of inexpensive, reliable energy should not be discounted.

Hydro Leader: How did the bill gain bipartisan support and the support of many industry and environmental groups?

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decisions of decades ago are more understood, it has become increasingly important to recognize and consider these long-term impacts from current investment decisions. The conference will be a forum for sharing technical expertise and fostering a healthy dialogue to promote improved decision-making, planning, design, construction, and management of

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to become engineers and scientists. Next year’s conference theme is also an opportunity to think about the future generation of dam and levee professionals and how we can set them up for success.

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Unexpected Interim Results in the Independent Investigation of the 2020 Breaches of Edenville and Sanford Dams

A view of Sanford Dam, which was overtopped and breached by the failure flood from Edenville Dam, looking downstream.

T

he catastrophic breach of central Michigan’s Edenville and Sanford Dams in May 2020 forced the evacuation of thousands of area residents and resulted in serious property damage. After the incident, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) engaged an independent forensic team (IFT) to investigate its causes. The IFT has recently released an interim report in which, among other findings, it identifies static liquefaction as the most likely mechanism by which Edenville Dam failed. Because this has not historically been considered a common failure mode for embankment dams, this finding is significant for the dam and hydropower industries. In this interview, consultant John France, who is leading the IFT, tells us more about the investigation.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about yourself and about your professional background.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the failure of Edenville and Sanford Dams.

14 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EGLE.

John France: I have been a private consultant for about 46 years.

Since about 2018, I have worked on my own as an independent consultant through JWF Consulting LLC. My career has been focused on dam engineering, safety, and risk analysis.

John France: On May 19, 2020, two dams failed near the city of Midland in central Michigan. The dams were two of four dams owned by Boyce Hydro. All four dams were built in the mid-1920s on the Tittabawassee River. From upstream to downstream, they are Secord and Smallwood Dams, both of which suffered some damage but not failure; Edenville Dam, which experienced the initial failure; and Sanford Dam, which subsequently failed.

Storms brought heavy rainfall to the area on the days before the incident. At Secord, the rainfall between May 17 and May 19 was as much as about 6 inches, and at the other three dams the rainfall was in the range of 3–4 inches. It was a significant but not extreme rainfall—nowhere near approaching the probable maximum precipitation. Over the night of May 17, the reservoirs began to rise, but they were still within their normal operating range. All four dams have gated spillways, and by the morning of May 18, the dam operators began to operate the gates. There were gate operations throughout the day, concluding at Sanford at about 8:00 p.m. The water continued to rise on the night of May 18–19. On the afternoon of May 19, lake levels peaked and began to recede at Secord and Smallwood, the two most upstream dams, but the water continued to rise at Edenville until 5:35 p.m.

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A view of Edenville Dam, looking upstream through the breach.

At daybreak on May 19, the dam operators noted a significant amount of erosion occurring on the upstream slope of Edenville Dam. In the middle of the day, they began to deploy silt curtains and other materials to try to reduce the erosion. Michigan dam safety personnel were on site in the late morning and early afternoon of May 19.

In the early afternoon of May 19, before 3:00 p.m., the lake was rising by as much as 3 inches per hour, but then the rate of rise began to diminish. The lake level never reached the crest of the embankment. However, at 5:35 p.m., there was a sudden failure of a section of the downstream slope of Edenville Dam, resulting in the dam’s breach and release of water behind it. That water flowed downstream to Sanford, which had two spillway facilities. The gated spillway, as I mentioned earlier, had been opened the day before. Sanford Dam also had a fuse plug spillway that was designed to erode and provide some additional spillway capacity for water if the lake got that high. The water did reach the top of the fuse plug spillway at about 7:20 p.m., and the fuse plug began to erode, adding to the spillway capacity. But the water was rising by as much as 3 inches per minute during this time because of the large inflow from the Edenville failure. The combination of the fuse plug spillway and the gated spillway simply wasn’t enough for that amount of inflow, and at 7:46 p.m., water went over the top of Sanford Dam. Around 8:00 p.m., the embankment started to erode significantly, and there was an overtopping erosion breach of Sanford Dam. That breach sent the storage from Sanford Dam and the failure flood from Edenville down into the town of Midland and other areas. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, because the emergency managers had made a proactive decision late hydroleadermagazine.com

in the evening of May 18 to evacuate people downstream.

Ultimately, they evacuated around 10,000 people out of harm’s way. However, two dams and lakes were lost, more than 2,500 homes were damaged, and there was property damage estimated to be in excess of $150 million.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us more about the structures themselves and how they were constructed?

John France: As I mentioned, these four dams were constructed in the mid-1920s. Each dam was originally constructed with a combination of two or more earth embankment sections and at least one concrete gated spillway with tainter or radial gates for control. And, of course, each one had a powerhouse for hydropower generation. During that era, before the advent of soil mechanics, or what was later called geotechnical engineering, dam designers and builders relied on rule-ofthumb guidelines for how to build embankment dams. The dams were built with local earth materials.

When we looked at the specifications for how the Edenville Dam embankments were supposed to be built, they indicated that the embankments were supposed to be built with soil materials that would be placed in layers and compacted. They were supposed to be constructed with an upstream section made of low-permeability clays and sandy clay material and a downstream section made of more permeable and waterconductive sands and silty sands. They were also supposed to have clay-tile drains placed underneath the downstream sections, extending perpendicular to the dams’ axes from the downstream toes to beneath the crests of the dams.

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT We know that the drains were built, because we have photographic documentation from construction, and some of the drains were still exposed at the dam. But as to whether the Edenville Dam embankments were built with that upstream-downstream configuration, the information is a little contradictory. We think it’s likely, but we can’t be certain. However, we are relatively confident that the compaction did not happen. We don’t see any evidence of compaction equipment in the construction photos that we’ve been able to find. In addition, over the years there have been a number of exploratory test borings drilled in the embankments, and when penetration tests were done, those sands and silty sands were found to have low blow counts— some less than five blows per foot—which indicates that the sands are loose, and in some places very loose. We even have photographs that show material being dumped in place in some sections of the embankments. So it appears that the embankment included some loose and very loose sands and silty sands, and we believe that was a primary factor in the mechanism of failure of Edenville Dam.

leader. We were engaged and paid by the DWR. In the case of Edenville and Sanford Dams, FERC again directed the owner to engage an IFT. Our names were submitted to FERC by the owner and were approved, but we were not able to reach a contractual agreement with the owner, and after about 3 months, FERC chose to engage us directly. In both cases, however, our rules of engagement as an IFT are that we do our work independent of the organization that has engaged or contracted us, particularly because both the owner and FERC are part of the human factors investigation. Our interim report was not reviewed by FERC; the owner; the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE); or any of the other parties associated with the dam before it was issued. That will also be the case with our final report. They have had no input into the way the investigation is done; it’s done fully independently.

Hydro Leader: Why was Edenville Dam’s FERC license revoked in 2018, and was it related to the failure incident?

John France: The investigation is ongoing. We issued the interim report because we had reached conclusions concerning the physical mechanisms of what happened, but we are still evaluating the hydrology and hydraulics of the flood itself. We are also still evaluating the human factors: the various judgments and decisions made and the actions taken or not taken throughout the history of the project.

Early in the investigation, we interviewed eyewitnesses of the incident. Now we are talking to individuals who may have been involved in the history of the project—engineers; operators; former employees of Boyce Hydro; and dam regulators from FERC and EGLE. A video of the Edenville Dam failure taken by a local resident proved to be particularly valuable in investigating this event. We spoke to the resident and to some of his neighbors who also witnessed the event. The video and photos they supplied were instrumental in forming our understanding of this failure. Two representatives from the state regulator were on site during the event, but they were involved with the crews to try to reduce the upstream slope erosion, so they were not situated where the failure happened. Without the video, I don’t know whether we would have reached the conclusion we did regarding the failure mechanism. The video shows that this section of the embankment really did not show any significant distress up until about 5:00 p.m. About 5:00, there was a visible settlement or depression of the section of the crest at the location where the ultimate failure happened. At that point, the residents, who had been watching the dam from upstream, walked around the end of the dam to the downstream side to continue watching. Moments before the failure, they noticed some water start to flow down the downstream slope, and one of the individuals started recording a video on his phone. The video shows that within about 10 seconds, a significant section of the downstream

John France: We’re still looking into that, so I don’t have a definitive answer for you. But as we understand it right now, the reason was not related to the physical mechanism of the failure. The dam had a couple of owners from the late 1990s up to the time of the failure. In the early 2000s, it was owned by a Canadian organization. In the mid2000s, Boyce Hydro acquired the dams. For years, FERC’s principal concern was that the spillways were too small to safely convey the probable maximum flood without water overtopping the embankments. Our understanding at this point—and we’re still doing interviews, so this may change—is that in 2018, FERC revoked the owner’s hydropower license over the spillway capacity issue, not over a geotechnical embankment instability issue, which was the ultimate cause of the failure.

Hydro Leader: After the incident, how did the formation of the IFT come about? Is it normal practice to establish an IFT after dam failures, or are they formed only after certain incidents?

John France: That process has evolved over time. In recent years, it has become FERC’s practice to require an independent forensic investigation after major incidents and failures at dams it regulates. You may recall the Oroville Dam spillway incident that happened in California in 2017. Although Oroville Dam itself did not fail, a failure of its service spillway resulted in the evacuation of almost 200,000 people. In that case, FERC required the owner of the dam, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), to engage an IFT, of which I was actually the

16 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the IFT’s investigation of the Edenville and Sanford incident.

hydroleadermagazine.com

ADVERTISEMENT portion of the embankment over a length of 40–80 feet actually failed, effectively flowed out of the downstream side of the embankment, and was deposited downstream of the dam. It appears that a remnant of the embankment on the upstream side held in place for about another 10 seconds before it ultimately gave way, and then the water in the reservoir started to flow through the breach, which widened over a couple of hours.

We came to the conclusion that the most plausible explanation is a phenomenon called static liquefaction. In the simplest terms, what happens is that a very loose saturated sand or silty sand can, by a couple of different trigger mechanisms, experience a dramatic and rapid reduction in strength. This results in an overall force imbalance in the soil mass, which creates an acceleration, and the acceleration creates velocity, resulting in rapid flow liquefaction.

We’re confident that the incident at Edenville Dam was not an overtopping failure. There is also another mechanism called internal erosion, which occurs when seepage through an embankment or foundation can actually erode particles of soil out of the embankment, and that can then begin to disintegrate the embankment and cause it to fail. But we don’t see evidence of that in this case. We think that static liquefaction is the most plausible explanation. We labored a lot with that conclusion; it’s a significant conclusion for the water dam engineering profession because that failure mechanism has not historically been looked at much. The professional literature almost entirely says that sands and silty sands will not behave like this except in an earthquake.

Our colleagues in the mine tailings dam sector over the past couple of decades have begun to recognize that mine tailings dams have behaved this way, but our colleagues in water dam engineering haven’t. Our conclusion means we have a new failure mode that we need to begin considering when we have loose sands or silty sands in embankment dams.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN FRANCE.

Hydro Leader: Does this conclusion suggest that static liquefaction is a greater danger for dams than previously believed?

John France: I think what it suggests is that it’s a physical possibility that we as a profession were not necessarily recognizing before. Documented cases of static liquefaction are pretty rare, quite frankly; there are probably only a handful. One of the big reasons we reached this conclusion was the video. I don’t know whether we would have reached it otherwise. That raises the question: During floods in the past, have there been some failures of embankment dams that may have been static liquefaction but were attributed to other causes, such as overtopping or internal erosion, simply because there were no eyewitnesses or videos? It still seems that it takes the combination of an unusual set of circumstances to cause static liquefaction, but this failure has taught us that we need to consider the possibility and understand the required circumstances better. hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: Does that suggest that there might need to be additional monitoring requirements on specific kinds of dams?

John France: I don’t think it’s a matter of monitoring, because the failure was so quick that monitoring would not necessarily have helped a lot. I think it’s more going to be investigation and evaluation. For most of the high-hazard dams in the United States—dams that would likely cause loss of life if they were to fail—we, the dam safety community, know a fair amount about how they were built and what the materials are in them. I think we have a pretty good handle on which dams might have loose sands or loose silty sands like these in them.

It’s going to be a matter of doing research on their design and construction, similar to what we did here. Perhaps some investigations will need to be done to evaluate whether the sands in those embankments are loose enough to behave this way. The profession as a whole will need to figure out what guidelines we’re going to use to evaluate this mechanism, because we don’t evaluate it right now. I think we can learn from what our colleagues in the mine tailings dam industry are doing and adapt their research to water dams. Then, hopefully, we’ll start looking at these dams more closely and, when we find problems, take corrective actions before we have failures like this one.

Hydro Leader: What are the next steps for the investigation?

John France: The next steps for the IFT, as I mentioned earlier, are to continue our human factors investigation and our evaluation of the hydrology and hydraulics of this particular flood. We have more interviews to do and more historical documents to go through. We also need to go through all the information that the public provided in response to our press release early in the investigation. One question we’re trying to answer is why the water level in Wixom Lake rose to this historic high level. We need to compile and write our report and then edit it so that all five members of the IFT are comfortable with what it says and are willing to put their names on it. That process takes a while, but we’re all anxious to move it forward as quickly as we can. We decided to issue this interim report now, at the point when we understood the physical mechanisms, in large part because of the significance to the water dam industry of our finding of static liquefaction as the primary physical mechanism of failure. H

John France is a private consultant.

He can be contacted at johnwfrance.pe@gmail.com.

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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Chelan Public Utility District Plans for the Relicensing of Rock Island Dam

Chelan PUD’s Rock Island Dam.

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he Chelan County Public Utility District (Chelan PUD) provides electric power, water and wastewater services, and broadband to 50,000–60,000 central Washington customers. The current 40‑year license on Chelan PUD’s nearly century-old Rock Island Dam expires in 2028, and the district is already working to consult its stakeholders in preparation for the relicensing process. In this interview, Chelan PUD’s hydro licensing manager, Janel Ulrich, tells Hydro Leader about how the district is thinking ahead about stakeholders, stewardship, and salmon and planning a future that works for everyone.

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

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Chelan PUD.

18 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the history of Rock Island Dam and its licensing. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHELAN PUD.

Janel Ulrich: I am the hydro licensing manager at Chelan PUD. I have worked for the district for 16 years. I am a chemical and environmental engineer, so I’m possibly an unlikely suspect for someone in my role. Before coming to the district, I worked in research and development, environmental cleanup, and a variety of other jobs. I joined Chelan PUD to assist with water quality for the Lake Chelan and Rocky Reach relicensing projects and to serve as a program manager for license implementation. After that, I worked on analytics, project management, risk management, portfolio management, and asset management before taking the hydro licensing manager position.

Janel Ulrich: Chelan PUD is headquartered in Wenatchee in central Washington State. Washington State has a law that allows the voters of counties to set up public utility districts to provide utility services. Chelan PUD was created in 1936 to serve our rural community, and today we have about 50,000–60,000 customers in Chelan County.

We are a large hydropower producer, generating enough power for about 800,000 homes. We use transmission and distribution lines to get that power to our customers and to market. We also have small water and wastewater systems and a fiber-optic network that allows most people in the county to get high-speed internet.

We own three hydroelectric plants: Rocky Reach, Rock Island, and Lake Chelan, all of which have Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licenses. Rock Island Dam sits on the main stem of the Columbia River. It has a nameplate capacity of about 630 megawatts. About 20 miles upstream is the Rocky Reach Dam. The Lake Chelan Dam sits at the end of Lake Chelan near the city of Chelan. There is a long penstock that runs down to a small 60‑megawatt project.

We value stewardship. We operate and maintain a proactive fisheries program with a number of hatcheries, and we have a system of recreational parks that are open to the public. We have a five-member board that is elected by the citizens of Chelan County.

ADVERTISEMENT Janel Ulrich: Rock Island Dam was built in the early 1930s.

It was the first powerhouse on the Columbia River, and its original license was obtained under the Federal Power Commission. We got our second license, a 40‑year license, in 1989. It will expire at the end of 2028. We are in the process of acquiring our third license for this project.

Hydro Leader: Will the new license also have a term of 40 years?

Janel Ulrich: FERC is allowed to provide a license of 30–50 years; the default is 40 years. We hope we may be able to obtain a 50‑year license. We are now working on modernizing the powerhouses and spillway, and we’ve done a significant amount of work for fish passage.

Hydro Leader: Your current license’s expiration in 2028 is still a number of years away. Is this a typical time frame for relicensing?

Janel Ulrich: The timeline is usually based on the size and complexity of the project and the basin in which the project is located. We worked on the relicensing of Lake Chelan and Rocky Reach Dams for 8–10 years. The requirement is that 5–5½ years prior to the expiration of your license, you submit a preapplication document and a notice of intent to FERC, thus starting the formal relicensing process. However, an applicant may get together with its various stakeholders and begin the process earlier. That is what we have elected to do so that we can ensure that there is plenty of time for dialogue with stakeholders—to listen to them, identify issues, and come up with creative solutions together. Also, by starting earlier, we hope to reduce the amount of time spent

toward the end of relicensing. We want a license that protects environmental and cultural resources and provides value for our customer-owners and the community at large.

Hydro Leader: Who are the stakeholders you are working with?

Janel Ulrich: The stakeholders in a relicensing process include federal and state agencies, tribes, local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and community members.

Anyone in the general public can be part of the process.

Hydro Leader: Would you give us an example of how working with your stakeholders led to a creative solution to a problem?

Janel Ulrich: I think my favorite example of what we mean by creative solutions came out of our Lake Chelan project. The water flows from Lake Chelan through a tunnel, or penstock, to the powerhouse. There’s a bypass reach where the water flowed before the project was built and the dam stopped that water flow part of the year.

Stakeholders wanted water restored to that bypass reach because there was the potential to create great salmon and steelhead habitat at the very bottom of the river. We had a few choices: We could have released a significant amount of water, which would have brought the lake level down and had big effects on recreational use and on a variety of different users in Lake Chelan, or we could do what we did, which is to bring together biologists and engineers to build a small pumping station by the powerhouse and create a manmade fish-friendly habitat. Now, after we generate power, we pump the water right back to the top of the fourth reach and put it through this habitat. It is a wildly successful project: We have far more fish habitat

The forebay of the Rock Island Dam.

hydroleadermagazine.com

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT than anyone ever envisioned, we preserve the lake levels necessary for recreational needs, and we’re still able to generate power. By bringing people together to pursue common goals, we were able to come up with a creative solution that met a variety of different needs.

Hydro Leader: What are the resources you are trying to protect at Rock Island?

Janel Ulrich: We are trying to protect all the fish, wildlife, habitat, recreation, and cultural resources affected by project operations. Three Endangered Species Act (ESA) species are known to exist in the project boundary: spring Chinook salmon, bull trout, and steelhead. Bull trout are managed under a management plan consistent with a biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In addition, Rock Island has a habitat conservation plan in place for salmon and steelhead. It covers two ESA-listed species and two species that are not listed but have the same life cycles. The habitat conservation plan has been in place since 2004 to make sure that we have good passage survival. We have spectacular passage survival at Rock Island Dam. We adjust our spill, we adjust our gates, and we work with the tribes and agencies that are parties to that 50‑year agreement. We have hatcheries and a tributary fund for projects that produce additional habitat for salmon and steelhead. We have amazing partners who actively work with us on habitat conservation plan implementation.

Hydro Leader: What are the next steps in the relicensing process?

Janel Ulrich: We recently held a stakeholder workshop to identify issues pertaining to the relicensing agreement. Starting in January, we’re going to have an engagement workshop and then start technical working groups. The working groups will look at the issues, identify any gaps, and make sure that there’s causation, meaning that they will ensure that any issues we consider relate to project operations. We will ascertain what aspects should be evaluated and get moving on studies as warranted. All that information will be included in the preliminary application document in 2023 as we move into the formal process.

Hydro Leader: A 50‑year license would end in 2079.

Presumably, many things may change over that term, including the population, water use patterns, and the climate.

How do those factors influence the requirements for a license?

20 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

Hydro Leader: What lessons learned from previous licensing projects will you be bringing to this one?

Janel Ulrich: The biggest takeaway is how important it is to value the expertise and the stewardship roles of our stakeholders. Bringing folks together to work in coordination with our internal talent always produces the best solution. We need to be clear about what the goals are for the resources we want to protect, what specific impacts we need to mitigate for and enhance, and then work side by side with our partners to figure out what the right solutions are.

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

Janel Ulrich: This reservoir sits right in the middle of two good-sized communities, Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, and there are also several small towns along the reservoir.

A lot of people, including our employees, live, play, and work here. This is our backyard. Most of us know exactly what the level of the river is, what birds fly overhead, and what’s happening in the softball fields. We’ve got a little more skin in the game, because this is home.

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future of Chelan PUD?

Janel Ulrich: The vision of the district is to stay true to our values, which are safety, stewardship, operational excellence, and trustworthiness. We take those very seriously. Our motto is to try to provide the best for the most for the longest. We continue to look at the long term, which includes relicensing. We’re publicly owned and are here for the long haul. This is where we live, this is where we work, and this is the power our families rely on. H

Janel Ulrich is the hydro licensing manager at the Chelan County Public Utility District. She can be contacted at janel.ulrich@chelanpud.org.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHELAN PUD.

Janel Ulrich: That’s a great question, because those can be complicated things to evaluate. There are different scenarios people can choose to model. For example, we will do a forecast study based on projected population

growth to assess whether our recreational facilities are sufficient for the future. In evaluating natural resources, adaptive management can give scientists the ability to do things differently as conditions change. Beyond that, we have to ensure that our projects are sustainable and reliable. We are putting a significant amount of money and effort into modernizing both of our powerhouses and our spillway so that they will be safe, high-producing projects decades into the future.

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Canyon Hydro: Custom-Designing Efficient Small Hydro Turbines

A Canyon Pelton turbine.

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anyon Hydro is a U.S. designer and manufacturer of custom hydro turbines, including micro hydro installations that can aid rural, off-grid communities or power remote buildings. In this interview, Brett Bauer, Canyon Hydro’s vice president of engineering, tells us about the company’s services, including manufacturing new turbines, refurbishing old ones, and aiding municipalities to recover energy from existing water systems.

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

Brett Bauer: I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Washington. Working at Canyon Hydro was my first real job after graduating from college in 1994. I wasn’t aware of the industry growing up, but when I moved to this town, I really needed a job. Canyon Hydro gave me a chance, and I’m still here. It’s been a great fit.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Canyon Hydro as a company.

22 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

and Company of Springfield, Ohio, which had been building turbines since 1862. We’re carrying on that legacy by manufacturing and servicing Leffel turbines as well as manufacturing and servicing our own turbines.

We are still based in the Bellingham area. We have 40–50 employees. Most of them work in our engineering and manufacturing departments and stay in our machine shop here. We send people on the road as necessary during overhaul efforts. We’ve manufactured Pelton turbines up to 27 megawatts (MW), and we’ve had the chance to overhaul and refurbish machines from multiple manufacturers up to about 65 MW. Hydro Leader: Where around the country and the world are you active today?

Brett Bauer: We are primarily active in the Americas and the UK. The bulk of our business is in the western United States.

We’ve installed a few machines in Honduras and Costa Rica and a couple as far south as Chile and Peru. We have an office in Chile, where we had a customer build a couple of machines in the 1 MW range. He handled the sales increase in that region for us. We were also able to build 30–40 machines for projects in the UK throughout its recent small hydro boom, which occurred over the last 10–15 years.

Hydro Leader: Who are your customers?

Brett Bauer: We have a wide range of customers. We manufacture units from 10–20 kilowatts (kW) on the low end up to around 25 MW on the high end, and across that range alone there are quite a few different types of hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CANYON HYDRO.

Brett Bauer: Canyon is a small, family-owned company that started in 1976 in a small town outside Bellingham, Washington. We started manufacturing Pelton turbines first, in the late 1970s, and then started building Francis turbines in the 1990s. Pelton and Francis turbines have been most of our business since then. In 2017, we purchased a small company from the Seattle area called SoarTech, which had designed an in-line turbine (ILT) for replacing pressure-reducing valves. We’ve been manufacturing those here since 2017. Then, in 2019, we purchased James Leffel

A Canyon Francis turbine.

ADVERTISEMENT customers. The small projects tend to be for remote villages or remote lodges where there is no utility available. Some are for private landowners. We’re also using small hydro systems to replace diesel generation in remote communities that are not connected to the grid, many in Alaska. Some of our favorite projects are the ones where we get to turn off diesel generation and put a town on hydropower instead. Larger standalone systems range up to around 500–1,000 kW. We also have larger customers like Colorado Spring Utilities, Portland General Electric, or Southern California Edison, some of which have a mandate to continue developing small projects. We have done some projects in the 1–25 MW range, which tend to be for either a utility or a private developer that has permitted the project and will then sell power commercially to the local utility company.

Hydro Leader: What does the term micro hydro generally refer to?

Brett Bauer: For us, micro hydro refers to the 5–100 kW range. We probably have 20–30 systems of that size in little villages in the Dominican Republic that previously didn’t have electricity. Previously, everybody was burning kerosene lamps. Through provisions from local charities and nongovernmental organizations, we have been able to put in small turbine generator control systems to give everybody in the village an outlet or to power communal hot water systems, the latter of which is a common use for a micro hydro system. A micro hydro system could also be installed by somebody who has a remote house without a power source or who doesn’t want to pay the utility company for power. An example of that might be a fishing lodge that needs 50 kW to carry on without diesel.

Hydro Leader: How much would the owner of one of those buildings be looking at paying for a micro hydro system?

Brett Bauer: The hydro system itself—the turbine generator control package—might cost $50,000–100,000. The larger costs tend to come from the diversion from the creek and the installation of a penstock.

Hydro Leader: What percentage of your projects involve designing and building new systems from scratch?

Brett Bauer: It fluctuates, but probably about 70 percent of our work consists in designing and building new systems.

The timeline to completion probably averages 5–7 years from the first contact with somebody who’s considering a project. They may come to us and say that they have a site with around 500 feet of head and 10 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water and ask what a hydro facility there would cost.

We work with them to develop a budget estimate, and then they go through several iterations of route considerations and utility interface requirements. The project scope tends hydroleadermagazine.com

to get refined over several years: More specific measurements are developed—483 feet of net head and 11.5 cfs, for example—and on that basis, they ask what type of turbine we recommend. We put together a turbine package that suits the resource, generator, and control system.

Hydro Leader: How can building a custom-designed system lead to higher efficiency?

Brett Bauer: The two numbers that drive turbine design are net head and flow rate. Since every stream or creek has slightly different characteristics, it’s pretty rare to find two sites that have exactly the same net head and flow rate.

Turbines need to be designed specifically for those factors, and by custom-designing them, we can optimize their efficiency and the energy they generate.

Canyon staff work on a turbine overhaul.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Canyon’s refurbishment projects.

Brett Bauer: Hydro projects, when they’re built right, are long lasting. We’ve recently worked on projects that were built back in 1906. Turbines generated some of the first power in the West. We’ve been working for the last 5–10 years on a project in Seattle that was first installed in 1895, gradually bringing it up to standard by doing things like putting new runners in. It is a real treat for us to get to crawl in an old powerhouse that was designed and built without all the advantages we have now. It is impressive to see these projects cranking along and producing power after more than 100 years. We do quite a bit of work on Leffel machines. There are a lot of low-head projects in the Midwest and on the East Coast from the early 20th century that are still working but need new parts every once in a while.

Hydro Leader: How does Canyon help recover energy from existing water systems?

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A Canyon in-line turbine.

Hydro Leader: What are your company’s other top issues today?

Brett Bauer: My concern is that as we look at meeting our national renewable energy goals, hydro tends to get left

24 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

out of the discussion. The discussion is focused on wind and solar. We are concerned that we aren’t doing enough to keep hydro in the renewable category. There are some folks who are making great effort at that—the Northwest Hydroelectric Association is doing a good job of trying to keep hydro in the mix and in the public consciousness as a good source for clean energy. I think we can do more.

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

Brett Bauer: When we look back at the high-quality hydro projects that were built 100 years ago, we can see how they helped develop our towns. They’re still a critical part of our infrastructure, and I’m encouraged to keep building quality systems that will benefit future generations. H Brett Bauer is the vice president of engineering at Canyon Hydro.

He can be contacted at brett.bauer@canyonhydro.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CANYON HYDRO.

Brett Bauer: Many towns have gravity-fed water supply systems that convey water from a lake or a spring up in the hills. Typically, excess pressure is created along the way. In those cases, we can put in a turbine to use that pressure and either drop it down to what the town needs for distribution or exhaust the pressure into a reservoir to be treated for use as potable water. Those projects tend to be relatively low output, but I think that in the future, as energy prices climb, there will be more motivation to look at places where you don’t have to do quite as much infrastructure work to put a turbine in. Municipal systems installed pressure-reducing valves that knocked the head down for distribution 50 years ago, and nobody thought it would be worthwhile to try to recover 50–200 kW from the pressure-reducing valve. The benefits of doing that are becoming increasingly evident. Canyon’s ILTs are designed to fit cost effectively into the space occupied by those valves and recover the energy that was previously lost.

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Oiles America’s Specialty Products for the Hydro Market

An Oiles turbine inlet valve bushing. This particular bushing includes grease grooves, visible at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions, in addition to self-lubricated plugs.

O

iles has supplied self-lubricating wear components to more than 2,000 hydroelectric installations around the world. In this interview, Kurt Garvey, the senior account manager of specialty markets for the Oiles America Corporation, talks about the company’s proprietary materials, markets, and customer service.

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

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us more about the Oiles America Corporation?

26 | HYDRO LEADER | October 2021

Kurt Garvey: Oiles was founded in Japan by Mr. Sozo Kawasaki in the late 1940s. The company’s first project was for a wooden bushing that was used in a tobacco-rolling machine. This bushing successfully replaced a metallic bushing that was lubricated by the old-style overhead oil-filled cups that fed lubrication by gravity. We have operations not just in North America but in Asia and Europe as well as South Africa and Australia. Oiles started as a material science company that made proprietary materials specific to its customers’ needs. Today, we produce not only our own specialized material—which in the case of hydro is our 500 series self-lubricated bronze— but our own self-lubricating plug materials as well. Oiles has upward of 2,000 hydro installations globally with a failure rate of zero. We take that very seriously. Hydro is hallowed ground for Oiles.

Hydro Leader: Does hydro make up a large part of the company’s overall output?

Kurt Garvey: Our largest market is automotive. We supply anything on a car that pivots, including suspension components, door hinges, and seat bearings. Hydro is our second-largest market. But the applications of self-lubricated components are almost endless. We also support the heavy construction equipment market with our components for cranes, large and small construction excavators, and tunnel-boring machines. In addition, we support the commercial marine, offshore, rail, tire, and power generation markets, the last by providing specialty wear components for steam turbines. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF OILES AMERICA.

Kurt Garvey: I am a senior account manager in specialty markets for the Oiles America Corporation. My primary focus is the hydroelectric industry. I’ve always enjoyed anything mechanical; it’s just in my DNA. My father owned a machine shop that specialized in the manufacture of precision machine components for the defense and industrial markets.

Being raised around and later working at the shop allowed me to develop my mechanical skills. After we sold the business in the late 1990s, I worked in sales for a manufacturer of self-lubricating wear parts for the hydroelectric market, then for a company that designed and manufactured large rolling element bearings for the heavy construction market.

I especially enjoyed the hydro market, given its long history of providing renewable energy. I enjoy seeing drawings from the early 1900s. Turbines were somewhat overbuilt in those days. It fascinates me to see them still in operation and being refurbished. With improvements in technology and materials, we can extend the life cycle of turbines.

This diagram indicates where Oiles bushings are used in a turbine inlet valve.

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This diagram indicates where Oiles bushings are used in a turbine.

An Oiles pintle bushing with both grease grooves and self-lubricated plugs being installed at the Three Gorges five-stage ship lock in China.

Hydro Leader: Are your hydro customers primarily from the private or the public sector?

We also offer another material for hydro applications called Fiberflon GH. This is a composite material that includes proprietary additives for lubrication throughout the matrix.

Kurt Garvey: It’s a combination of both. Most of our clients are companies that rebuild or provide new hydro turbines.

Others are construction companies that are refurbishing dams that include radial gates or roller gates. Both gate types need bushings, so we’ll sell directly to them, and they in turn sell to the end user. Occasionally, we sell directly to end users; it depends on how the contract is structured.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about how your self-lubricated products work.

Kurt Garvey: It really depends on the material. Since we’re discussing hydro, we’ll talk about our Oiles 500 series components. We have our own foundry where we develop our proprietary bronze. Our self-lubricated plugs are made of proprietary material with embedded solid lubricants. Our 500 series components include these self-lubricated plugs, which disperse over the wear surface of the part during the application cycling movement.

In the case of a wicket gate bushing, the plug material disperses over the wear surface as the bushing is cycled.

Over time, the wear surface becomes coated with the plug material, which completes the self-lubrication process.

On occasion, we’ve had customers who were apprehensive about making the transition from fully greased to selflubricated components. In those situations, we provided components that included both our self-lubricated plugs and grease grooves. hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: What might you use in a water valve application?

Kurt Garvey: This would be for turbine inlet or outlet valves.

Lately, we’ve seen an increase in demand for self-lubricated bushings for turbine inlet valves, which regulate the water going into the turbine. Due to the application conditions, we provide our 500 series self-lubricated bushings. With turbine inlet valve projects, we’ve provided flanged bushings that were just over 68 inches in diameter and weighed close to 2,000 pounds.

Hydro Leader: Do you use your propriety bronze because of the way it works with the plug material?

Kurt Garvey: Yes. The bronze and plug materials work hand in hand and are specific to each customer’s application.

Each application varies in its load, speed, motion, and so on. Material recommendations are specific to each situation.

Our materials give us quite a few tools in the box for our customers. It really boils down to getting good information about each specific application so that we can offer the best solution to meet the customer’s needs.

For example, we have a customer with whom we started working some years back on a wicket gate application.

They were using a similar material from another manufacturer, but the parts weren’t lasting as long as they would have liked. They tried our 500SP1, an enhanced November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT version of a C86300 bronze, with our self-lubricated plug material and were able to increase their time in service.

After some tweaking, they later tried our 500SP5 material for this application. This is Oiles’s heaviest grade of 500 material available. I jokingly refer to it as our kryptonite. The best time in service was met, and they haven’t looked back.

Hydro Leader: It sounds like the company engages in a lot of research and design activity, even for a specific customer’s needs.

Kurt Garvey: The research generally originates either with a consulting engineer, a turbine firm, or a customer that supports one of the two. They will approach us and say that they want to maximize their time in service between project outages. Basically, the longer the hydro turbine is running, the happier everyone involved is. We start the process by obtaining the customer’s application conditions. From there, our engineers review the details and make recommendations on the best material for the project.

Hydro Leader: How long do these bearings last?

Kurt Garvey: It’s application specific. In the example I mentioned in which the customer transitioned to a heavy material, they were previously seeing only about a year in service, and now, they’re getting 5–6 years, which they’re thrilled with. We have another customer that removed our wicket gate bushings for inspection after 18–19 years of use.

After calculating the wear rate, they realized that they could have run them for 23–25 years.

Hydro Leader: Has your company experienced difficulties over the past year or two regarding access to materials or labor?

Kurt Garvey: It’s been a challenge for everyone. The main challenge is with transportation and shipping. We’ve been fortunate with our planning. We do our best to adjust our production schedules as needed to meet customers’ needs.

There have been situations in which a customer might need parts sooner than we can generally provide them. In some cases, we may need to use air freight; in others, we may need to pass on an opportunity, which is rare. What I say to our customers and have them relay to the end users is that it’s all about advance planning. The more you can plan ahead, the better.

Kurt Garvey: Yes, we’ve had some changes, as other companies have. There are many job opportunities available, so you see folks moving around. Overall, we’ve managed to weather the storm.

Hydro Leader: Have there been issues with access to financing, either for the company or its customers? Does Oiles provide financing to customers?

Kurt Garvey: There have been no issues that I’m aware of.

While we don’t offer financing to our customers, we do our best to accommodate their payment terms. As for Oiles, we’re well funded and in good shape. It all comes down to good planning and forecasting.

Hydro Leader: How does Oiles differentiate itself from its competitors?

Kurt Garvey: I’d say that it starts with how we run a project.

We’re fortunate to have a great team with diverse skill sets. Solving challenges, providing materials with superior performance, exceeding customers’ expectations, and providing the ultimate customer service experience are where Oiles shines.

Hydro Leader: What is the company’s vision for the future?

Kurt Garvey: Overall, I’d say it is growth, not only in current markets but in new markets as well. The potential for self-lubricating wear components is almost limitless.

Between material science, engineering, manufacturing technology, and program management, Oiles is the total package. Once a project is finished, we want our customers to say that Oiles provided the ultimate customer service experience with the best solution while making their job easier. H

Kurt Garvey is senior account manager of specialty markets for the Oiles America Corporation. He can be contacted at kgarvey@oiles.com or sales@oiles.com.

28 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

PHOTO COURTESY OF OILES AMERICA.

Hydro Leader: Was Oiles able to maintain its workforce over the last couple of years?

hydroleadermagazine.com

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THE INNOVATORS

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Nering Industries’ Hydroelectric Water Wheel

Marc Nering with his water wheel.

M

arc Nering has extensive experience in heavy industry, business, hydropower, and carbon capture, and as if that were not enough, he also designed and built an innovative power-generating water wheel in his garage. In this interview, Mr. Nering tells us about the design and construction of his device, its potential use cases, and how his design is being used around the world.

Marc Nering: I have been in heavy industry since the early 1980s.

I originally started as a welder and a millwright. I eventually went back to college for business and project management. I worked in power generation and pipelines, and then in 2004, I moved to British Columbia and became involved in the hydro industry. I

32 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about Nering Industries.

Marc Nering: I created Nering Industries as a consulting firm and have used it for a couple of different things. I use it to sell my water wheel design as well as solar products. I’ve partnered with a couple of different companies, one in Italy and one in Chile, that use parts of my hydro design for some of their processes.

Hydro Leader: How did you come up with the idea for the water wheel? What problem were you trying to solve, or what niche were you trying to fill with it? hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF NERING INDUSTRIES.

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

was the plant manager for several hydro plants in the province until 2017, when I took early retirement and created my own consulting company, Nering Industries.

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THE INNOVATORS

to use it as an irrigation spiral pump. However, I found some information on permanent magnet generators that worked at about 50 rotations per minute—something that could be used to generate electricity. A good colleague of mine helped me design the wheel and work out all the problems in a computer-assisted design program. After we came up with the plan, I built it almost entirely myself. It took several years to build, and the permitting process took another couple of years. Nobody else has really ever done anything like this, especially in British Columbia. I had to do environmental assessments and studies to make sure I wouldn’t affect fish or damage the environment.

Hydro Leader: What advantages does a water wheel have over other hydropower devices?

Marc Nering: You don’t need to dam a river to use it, since you’re using the water velocity of the river to turn the wheel.

Obviously, you need a fast-flowing river. It’s simple to build.

Little infrastructure is required; you basically only need to build a solid foundation on a riverbank. I’ve had quite a bit of interest from third-world countries and from people who do not have much access to sophisticated machining equipment. I built most of it in my garage, so it’s not too hard for a skilled tradesperson to build.

Hydro Leader: What materials did you use to build it?

Marc Nering: I used aluminum for the wheel itself; the other components are carbon steel. The foundation is concrete.

Aluminum is a little tricky to weld if you’ve never done it before. Other materials can be used—I originally was going to use corten steel, but I switched to aluminum to save weight.

Hydro Leader: How much power can your wheel generate?

Marc Nering: I live on a farm on a fast-flowing river in British Columbia, the Cheakamus River. Looking at the river on a daily basis, I often thought that its untapped power could be used to power my house. In fact, the millwright trade actually started off creating mills along rivers—grinding mills for flour and powering other equipment. I came across a book from the early 1800s that was full of millwrights’ and millers’ guides. Basically, it was a how-to book about how a millwright would look at the lay of the land around a river and decide where to build a water-powered mill. That piqued my interest, and I gave it some thought. Working in the hydro industry gave me quite a bit of knowledge and access to other industry experts, so I decided to go ahead and try to build my own water wheel. Instead of using it to grind flour, I eventually decided to generate electricity. My original purpose was hydroleadermagazine.com

Marc Nering: That depends on the velocity of the river, how much blade area you have, and that sort of thing, so it’s scalable.

The most I’ve made is about 3 kilowatts. My biggest issue is that it makes so much torque that I get a lot of belt slippage, especially when everything is wet. I could, and eventually will, make modifications to eliminate that problem, such as using a chain drive, a gearbox, or a direct drive generator.

Hydro Leader: You currently use it to power your house, correct?

Marc Nering: I use it to power my house, and I’ve got a grid-tied converter, so any extra power I make I export to the grid.

Hydro Leader: How fast flowing does a river need to be for the water wheel to be used in it?

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

| 33

THE INNOVATORS Marc Nering: Ten feet or 3 meters per second, at minimum.

Hydro Leader: Since building your wheel and using it for a few years, have you made any changes in its design or operations?

Marc Nering: I’ve had to make a couple of changes. What was probably the biggest change originally started with the mechanical roller bearings. I went through two sets of them.

The issue was water ingress, despite the fact that I was using the highest-quality SKF bearings and the best seals I could find. That caused the bearings to rapidly deteriorate: They only lasted three-quarters of a year. I did some online research and looked back in time at what was done in the past. I learned that in the olden days, they used wooden bearings.

I contacted a U.S. company called Lignum Vitae North America that sells lignum vitae wood bearings and put them on my water wheel about 2 years ago. It’s been great.

Operating the wheel takes some attention. I don’t have an automatic method of adjusting the elevation, so depending on river flow changes from rain or snow melt, I have to adjust the elevation of the wheel in the water.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the environmental effects of the water wheel and any mitigation steps that you had to take?

Marc Nering: The permitting was difficult. I had to satisfy municipal, provincial, and federal agencies as well as First Nations, kayakers, and others. The Province of British Columbia and the British Columbia Ministry of Environment looked at it as if it were a dam-based hydro plant and asked how much water I was retaining and other questions like that. I tried to explain to them that this thing sits on the side of the river and generates power without holding back any water or affecting fish. Convincing the regulators was the hardest part. I still had to do several environmental studies. Luckily, I have some colleagues in the industry who helped me do the environmental studies at a reasonable cost. There was a concern about salmon traveling downstream at night, which is when they typically migrate downstream to avoid predation, and getting injured in the wheel, in a manner similar to what occurs with a standard hydro dam, where there are large pressure changes that can affect fish as they move through a Francis-type impellor. I also had to put a bond down with the government so that whenever I decide to abandon this project, there is enough money to disassemble everything and remove it. That was a huge part of the total cost of the project.

Hydro Leader: So are you licensing the design to these companies?

Marc Nering: Yes, I’m sharing the design. I have blueprints of everything. There are certain design elements that are interesting to other people who are making similar machines, such as the ability to rotate the wheel in and out of the water and my method for raising and lowering the wheel using hydraulics. I’ve solved a few problems that some people have scratched their heads over.

Hydro Leader: It sounds like you don’t have current plans to actively market your water wheel around the world, correct?

Marc Nering: That’s correct. Even though I took an early retirement, I’m now working as a manager for a carboncapture company. I work long hours, and when I get home, I don’t want to spend a lot of time promoting my products. I also live on a farm, so I have enough work to do here.

Hydro Leader: How should those who are interested in your water wheel get in touch with you?

Marc Nering: They can e-mail me, and I’m willing to share my design and certain concepts if anybody’s interested. I’ve been approached to manufacture these water wheels, but it doesn’t make financial sense to do that, considering the costs of shipping.

I’ve made some money by sharing the design with other people.

If someone wants to build something similar but needs some guidance, not only would I share the design, but I’d give them some tips about things that I’ve learned over the years. H Marc Nering is the founder of Nering Industries. He can be contacted at neringindustries.com.

Marc Nering: I originally had no plans to commercialize it. It was just something I wanted to do. I like looking at it every day. My son convinced me to put it on YouTube, and

34 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF NERING INDUSTRIES.

Hydro Leader: Do you have any plans to commercialize the water wheel, to sell it, or to install other wheels anywhere?

I’ve gotten millions of views. I’ve received a lot of interest from people, mostly from do-it-yourself types who want to build something similar. I had some commercial people contact me. I signed an agreement with a company in Italy that wants to use parts of my design, and a company in Chile is using the water wheel as part of its project to collect plastic in rivers.

Using a water wheel like this is never going to be cheaper than grid power. It only makes sense for remote communities, places without grid power, and places that rely on diesel generation. I’ve had some interest from thirdworld countries and people in areas that aren’t serviced by the grid and rely on solar or wind, which are intermittent.

Those are the type of people who would be interested in my product, and I’d be willing to share the design with them.

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JOB LISTINGS

Hydro Leader Does your organization have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages? Hydro Leader provides this service to irrigation districts, water agencies, and hydropower facilities free of charge. For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

SALES AND MEMBERSHIP ENGAGEMENT MANAGER Location: Washington, DC (Remote Available) Deadline: Until Filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +P osition reports to the VP of Operations & Member Services and works with previous customers and warm leads to develop a strategy and lead a comprehensive sales and engagement program. +E stablish and nourish relationships with NHA Members and the waterpower industry at large and maintain contact details in association management system. +W ork collaboratively with NHA staff to plan and develop an integrated sponsorship and advertising program.

REQUIREMENTS: +S killed in providing an exceptional customer experience through written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills. +P roven ability to maintain positive communication and relationships with members, industry, staff, and all levels of management. +C reativity, diplomacy, and ability to navigate among competing stakeholders. +A bility to handle a variety of projects and multiple tasks while working with minimum supervision; excellent attention to detail, particularly with database entry and spreadsheets; and excellent proofreading and organizational skills. +B achelor’s degree in relevant professional field with a minimum of three years office experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.

For more information: go to https://hydro.careerwebsite.com

TECHNICAL SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT – ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY HYDRO TURBINES Location: Northwestern United States Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +P resent Nustreem well by representing our product and our values accurately and enthusiastically. +M aintain existing lines of business relationships and effectively obtain new business. +B uild rapport and trust with both internal and external customers. +P rovide market feedback to help product development, marketing, and other strategies.

38 | HYDRO LEADER | November/December 2021

REQUIREMENTS: +2 + years of Sales Experience in the Hydropower Industry. +S trong technical understanding of mechanical and/or electrical products. +E xcellent written and verbal skills. +C omputer literate with Sales Force, Zoho or other CRM. For more information: go to https://NuSTREEM.com or send your resume and cover letter to HR@NuSTREEM.com.

LEAN COORDINATOR Location: Adelanto, CA & Orem, UT Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +L ead evaluation of production processes needing improvement and recommend solutions to management. +W ork with management/supervision, Operations, QA, and Maintenance to develop best practices. +D rive process improvement through statistical analysis and Lean toolbox. +O ptimize manufacturing processes to attain maximum safety, product quality, efficiency, and repeatability. +T rain and mentor department subject-matter experts in the application of the continuous improvement system.

REQUIREMENTS: +B achelor’s degree in Engineering or a technical discipline desired. +M inimum 3 years business operations, plant engineering or manufacturing experience to include 1‑2 years of process improvement program proven success. +U nderstanding of welding concepts and liquid industrial coating applications. +C ertification in Lean Manufacturing processes strongly preferred.

For more information: contact Nick Hidalgo, Talent Acquisition at nhidalgo@nwpipe.com, or go to www.nwpipe.com/careers.

ESTIMATOR Location: Remote Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +R eviews data to determine material and labor requirements and prepares cost estimates of steel pipe and fittings for competitive bids. +A nalyzes data to determine manufacturing capabilities at individual facilities. hydroleadermagazine.com

JOB LISTINGS +C omputes cost factors and prepares estimates used for

management purposes such as planning, organizing, and scheduling work, preparing bids, selecting vendors or subcontractors, and determining cost effectiveness. +C onsults with Sales and provides Sales with detailed scopes of work for competitive bids. +P rovides information and guidance to Project Managers on all details of an estimate once the project has been awarded.

REQUIREMENTS: +4 -year undergraduate degree, preferred or minimum of 2 years of experience in related field.

For more information: contact Nick Hidalgo, Talent Acquisition at nhidalgo@nwpipe.com, or go to www.nwpipe.com/careers.

PROJECT MANAGER Location: Saginaw, TX Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +D esign, development, and delivery of effective water transmission applications. +L ead design sessions and review sessions with engineering, operations, production control team members, and other members of the organization including all levels of management. +R eview and assess vendor proposals. +M anage multiple, parallel projects using formal project planning techniques. +M anage application design through the various life cycle stages from business needs through design and delivery.

REQUIREMENTS: +D emonstrated ability to manage multiple, parallel projects. +M ust have excellent computer skills including MS Word, Excel, CADS, and other project management programs. +E xcellent oral and written communication, advanced mathematics, and analytical and problem solving skills.

For more information: contact Nick Hidalgo, Talent Acquisition at nhidalgo@nwpipe.com, or go to www.nwpipe.com/careers.

RENEWABLE ENERGY ANALYST Location: Atlanta, GA Deadline: Until Filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +E xecute analytical, strategic, and financial assessments for business case development +G ather customer/market information and offer recommendations to answer key business questions

+Q uantify risk and rewards to prioritize commercial

activity and drive sales +T ranslate business problems into advanced analytics and

research projects +O wn detailed financial modeling and market research

for economic determinations such as cost of energy, breakeven, and project IR REQUIREMENTS: +B BA/BA/BS in business, finance, accounting, or engineering + I nvolvement in developing creative research and analysis program + I ntermediate proficiency with Excel and PowerPoint for financial modeling and presentations +E xcellent written, analytical, and organizational skills, including the proven ability to manage multiple projects +A bility to travel up 25% For more information: go to https://emrgy.com/careers/ or send cover letter and resume to HR@emergy.com

SALES ENGINEER Location: Atlanta, GA Deadline: Until Filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +R eview customer water resource data to determine the most valuable project scope (turbine and array sizing). +C reate and manage sales tools for developing system solutions and value optimization. +C reate customer proposals and presentations demonstrating the benefits, value and financial payback. +U se financial modeling tools to calculate cost of energy, payback period and project IRR +M eet with clients, as part of the sales team, for sales presentations, and to develop customer offering. +A cquire new customers by winning them over from competitors and discovering new opportunities +M anage own book of sales opportunities developing from origination to order.

REQUIREMENTS: +B S degree in engineering, preferred background in electrical, mechanical, or systems +S trong customer service, analytical, and interpersonal skills. +N egotiation and problem-solving skills, and data analysis/ modeling. +P roficiency with Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. +A bility to travel up 50%.

For more information: go to https://emrgy.com/career/ or contact hr@emrgy.com

FOR ADDITIONAL HYDRO-RELATED CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, VISIT: Hydro Leader’s online job board: https://hydroleadermagazine.com/job-board/ National Hydropower Association careers page: https://www.hydro.org/careers/ United States Society on Dams job listings page at: https://www.ussdams.org/resource-center/job-postings/ hydroleadermagazine.com

November/December 2021| HYDRO LEADER

| 39

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Upcoming Events

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