CONOWINGO DAM UPSTREAM NEGLECT AND ACCOUNTABILIT Y
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BY JEFF HOLLAND he issues churning around the Conowingo Dam are as murky as the muck in the bottom of the reservoir behind it, but we will have you out of the mud before we reach the end of this article.
When the Conowingo Dam was built in 1928, it was the next largest hydro-electric dam in the country, second only to the one at Niagara Falls. For the first 80 years of its existence, the dam trapped much of the nutrients and sediment flowing down the river from all the farms and all the towns and all the cities in that vast area of central Pennsylvania and into southern New York. That was a good thing. But then the reservoir reached its capacity, like a septic tank after a weekend of too many guests. That’s bad. One environmental group estimates that nearly 200 million tons of sediment pollution have accumulated behind the dam. During major storms, floodwaters can scoop out or “scour” the sediment from the reservoir and send it downstream to pollute the Chesapeake Bay. While the State of Maryland owns the Susquehanna River in public trust, Exelon Generation Corporation owns and operates the dam. The hydroelectric power plant generates 572 MW of electricity, enough to power 165,000 homes. Hydroelectric dams are a relatively clean way to generate power; a coal-burning plant of equal capacity might spew 880,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
All hydroelectric dam operators need a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to operate. Exelon’s current license expired in 2014. The corporation applied for a new 50-year license, but before FERC can grant that new license, the State of Maryland has to certify that the project will meet state water quality standards. This water quality certification is required under section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act, but it’s also a good opportunity to provide Maryland with some leverage over Exelon to see that it operates the dam in a way that protects the Bay. 32
What’s Up? West County | October 2020 | whatsupmag.com
PART II
