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. Page 4 WRW washn x x x (CREDA) The Power Resources Committee of the EIS team issued a report in connection with the draft EIS forecasting higher costs. It indicated the modified low fluctuating flow alternative at Glen Canyon Dam chosen by the cooperating agencies could cost an additional $75.4 million annually to implement. Glen Canyon Dam provides 75 percent of CRSP hydropower capacitYl Flaming Gorge and the Aspinall units in Colorado the rest. Glen Canyon Dam has 1356 megawatts (MW) of capacity and was designed to provide peaking power to meet peak demand. It was cut back by 400 MW, or about 30 percent, as of Nov. 1, 1991, during the interim test flow period. It would be further cut back by the draft EIS proposal. Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah, which has 153 MW of capacity and also was designed to provide peaking power, has been cut back by 50 MW, also 30 per cent. In the past, peaking power was available to the CRSP power users "on an hour's notice. Now it takes three days to schedule a change in demand," and that time lag would continue under the draft EIS proposal, according to Sabo. "Who knows what the weather will be like and what demand will be three days from now?" a manager using CRSP power groused to WRW. To assure more efficiency in the federal power system, Bu/Rec in the 1980's had the power units at Glen Canyon Dam rewound and uprated to make them more responsive to peaking power demands. This work was com- pleted in 1987. But since 1991 and under the draft EIS that costly work is useless because of restrictions on peaking power at Glen Canyon. "We are losing our resource," a concerned WAPA official told WRW on Jan. 23. The lnability of these federal pOwer units to respond fully to power demand because of restrictions already requires WAPA to purchase power from other sources. It will ultimately require the construction of new coal-fired or gas-fired power units, perhaps as early as 1998, to meet the power needs in the territory that Glen Canyon power serves, accord- ing to the Power Resources Committee. Glen Canyon power is now marketed in Colorado, Utah, wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and thru some interties in Southern California. There is also a battle going on here over the value of hydropower. Power officials generally are very high on hydropower because it is flexible, can respond to demand and emergencies almost at once, and it is a clean non-polluting source of power, as compared to fossil fuel- generated power which causes air pollution, particularly coal-fired power plants. But environmentalists have become increasingly turned off on hydropower because they oppose the construction of dams that generate hydropower. Dams change rivers and impede movement of fish up and down- stream. They are lethal to anadromous fish that live in both salt and fresh water. For that reason Beard and Edward R. Osann, his deputy at Bu/Rec, both committed environmentalists, strongly oppose hydropower. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which also gave a warm en- dorsement to the draft EIS, has questioned WAPA's estimates of power losses and costs as a result of the cutback at Glen Canyon. Spreck Rosencranz, an EDF analyst who serves on the Power Resources Committee of the EIS team, told WRW that WAPA's cost projections consistently have been inflated. He claimed the pOwer costs to date since peaking power at Glen Canyon was cut back in November 1991 did not exceed more than $3 million a year. Furthermore, he said, because there is a surplus of electric power in the West, costs and rates will escalate slowly in coming years under the low fluctuating flow operation of the dam pro- posed in the draft EIS. WAPA told WRW to date its costs of replacing Glen Canyon power have ranged from $3-$5 million a year.iitt . (more)