Disturbing Lackawanna River News

[djs12354]

An article in this morning's Scranton Times that I find very disturbing and has me wondering of the potential impact on the Lackawanna Rivers trout fishery.

My concers are possible impact on the flow levels and damage to the upper section of the Lackawanna. Is there potential to warm the river?

Thoughts and or comments?

Hydro-Eclectric Dams on the Lackawanna River

 

[krayfish2]

If I read that correctly, they will build two Lakes. There will be a closed-loop generating system between the two Lakes. I don't know where those lakes would be in respect to where the stream flows now. I would be more concerned about the potential loss of stream to Lake impoundments than the warming of the water.

Anybody know the area well enough to pinpoint where the proposed lake construction would be?

 

[CathyG]

If I'm reading this correctly, the net power generation is negative but adds power during peak hours. Considering the cost of construction and operation, I don't see the economics of it.

What concerns me is taking water out of the river. The Lack is really just a small stream in this section. Water is already taken out for fracking tankers. Since its a closed system it shouldn't affect the river too much but in summer any water loss could be bad. If there's a regulation stating the CFS at the Forest City gauge be a particular minimum it might be OK.

 

[fritz]

I've fished up there but am not familiar enough to know where the hydro plants would be. Maintaining fish sustainable flows seems like it would be the important issue.

The economics of pumps storage plants pans out because they generate when power prices are at high and pump when the prices are low. It's a matter of income vs expense instead of net generation over a period of time.

 

[Zak]

The issue to me isn't that they'll use the river to fill the lakes. That can probably be timed to be a meaningless event in the winter of spring. The Forest City gauge is like 150 right now. You could pump water till you're blue in the face and it wouldn't matter. What's concerning is that in reality, during the hottest days of summer, they'll need to pump constantly and that's going to be VERY BAD for the lower sections of river. They're looking at around 600 acres of flat water so that's a lot of evap during the height of summer and then the Lacky is at 15 cfs in Aug I can't imagine that that isn't going to have an impact if the only water source is the river. I don't know but I I don't like it right now. What I do know is that there is not one single positive to this for the water shed ecologically speaking.

 

[Smike]

Ya I read it as it will be a closed system (neither taking or releasing water into the watershed). The part that kills me is, with all the previously disturbed land near there, why on earth would the local borough allow them to create further land development especially in an area that has some of the higher natural qualities for the community. Hopefully the locals value that and will get this project moved to another location with much lower impact.

 

[Zak]

Smike if you read again there's a one sentence section about pulling from the river to fill and to maintain during times of high evap. That's the concern.

Some of those areas are un-reclaimed strip mines and in terrible condition. There's areas where the waste pile literally come right to the stream bank and the Lacky flows right against them. so in reality something like this COULD be useful in similar locations but not at the expense of the lower rivers still ever improving trout fishery. You can't just take without giving something back to the river.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

First law of thermodynamics: The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed.

So, it would take just as much energy to pump the water from the river to the higher elevation lakes as they would get back by releasing that water during peak need times. In other words, there should be zero energy gain from this activity.

Am I missing something here? How can this be profitable. It seems like fools gold to me.

I live in the area and don't remember any brown outs or other issues that would create demand for this. Isn't fracking supposed to be a panacea for our energy needs??

Besides, I think Lackawanna river conservation association, Lackawanna TU, and other interested parties would work against such a power generation system.

 

[salmonoid]

The reason it would be built is so that at peak demand times, you can cover an increased load on the electrical grid. Nobody is claiming it will somehow escape the first law of thermodynamics - there will be a net loss of energy, but an additional amount of energy will be available on demand during peak times.

The proposed setup appears to be similar in a lot of ways to Muddy Run in the lower Susky. Muddy Run is a pumped storage facility, brought online in 1966. I wasn't around then, but have read that the pool inundated one of the most beautiful glens in the lower Susquehanna. Inundation of small gorges in the Lackawanna projects is noted to. However, the Muddy Run project has many orders of magnitude more water to draw from in the lower Susky than these projects would in the upper Lackawanna.

 

[krayfish2]

Sounds like the same math used here to validate the project that they used for the WB hydro project.... Cost 72 mil, generates 1 mil per year in electric. With salaries, overages and interest, it should be paid off in 100-120 years. Sounds like those in office are doing favors for someone to make a pile of cash.

 

[fritz]

The reason they are building it is to make money. And if it's built they'll make it. Hydro plants, pumped storage or not are money makers. Some have been in service over 100 years. They wouldn't be operating in PA with its deregulated market it they were not profitable.

 

[djs12354]

Some of those areas proposed for damming are also some of the lesser "urbanized" sections of the Lackawanna.

Other concerns of mine relate to damage done by construction of the dams and clear-cutting to allow the constructions.

As state by someone else, flows of the Lackawanna can be pretty low during the summer months. What happens of priority is given to maintiaining the dam levels instead of the flows at these times?