The utilities said they made “substantive revisions to the program,” but it still drew blowback from groups that wanted water restored to the full length of the river.
Water is released from the a dam on the upper Eklutna River on Sept. 22, 2021 near Eklutna Lake. The dam has been closed and the river has been dry for many years, with most of the water diverted to produce power and supply Anchorage with drinking water. The Chugach and Matanuska electric associations and the Municipality of Anchorage’s hydropower utility own the dam and hydropower project that dries up the river.
The biggest change to the utilities’ proposal is that it allows a management committee to reevaluate options for fish passage into Eklutna Lake anytime after the water has flowed for 10 years. The price tag for the project has increased from a previously estimated $57 million to $63.8 million. That could rise to more than $72 million, under a new option in the plan that could see a fixed wheel gate installed in the dam after 10 years. A fixed wheel gate would allow water to go through the dam when the reservoir is full.• $350,000 in funding for habitat enhancement, such as creating logjams and side channels.
• As water flowing into the lake from the surrounding watershed increases, the additional water will be split 50-50 between the hydropower project and what is diverted into the river. Owen said that their assessment of dam removal showed that the increased river flow would pose significant risk to downstream infrastructure, including the city’s public water supply, and would come with numerous additional costs.
In a statement Thursday, Brad Meiklejohn, the Alaska representative for The Conservation Fund, slammed the utilities over the final plan.
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