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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09182019 PACAB Laydown - Hydro Project 09 (g Brenda Ballou 7/21-6-71-- From: Brenda Ballou Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 8:23 AM To: bballou@cityofseward.net ('bballou@cityofseward.net') ('bballou@cityofseward.net) Subject: FW: Next Step For Lowell Creek Hydro Project TO: PACAB From:andybaker@yourcleanenergy.us<andybaker a@yourcleanenergy.us> Sent:Tuesday,September 17, 2019 7:55 PM To: jfoutz@cityofseward.net;pgillis@cityofseward.net; darryljs@gci.net Subject: Next Step For Lowell Creek Hydro Project John, As you and I discussed last week there in Seward while together with Pat Gillis, Doug Schoessler, and Darryl Schaefermeyer, the next critical path step of the Hydro Project is to work directly with Army Corps of Engineers and DNR to establish a weir and USGS gage station in the upper canyon of Lowell Creek at elevation 460 ft. The new Project Manager with ACOE at JBER in Anchorage for Lowell Creek Tunnel is Ronnie Barcak who I spoke with today about the hydro project. He has taken over as PM from Brand Phillips who I spoke with back on July 3 2019 regarding coordinating a gage installation. At this time there is no need for the City to hire AWR to prepare a scope for a scope of work. The work now is for the City to partner directly with ACOE to get a weir and USGS flow gage installed in the upper canyon of Lowell Creek at elevation 460 ft; and a USGS flow gage installed on the Marathon Creek dam at elevation 720 ft. Without these two flow gages, there would be no point in pursuing other elements of the required hydrologic study. The gages need to be robust and provide a standard of discharge flow data equal to that now available at the tunnel outlet. This tunnel outlet gage was installed by USGS in March 2019 as part of the ACOE / City of Seward agreement to share cost of the Lowell Creek Tunnel Feasibility effort. There are 20 months left in this joint study effort with opportunity to include the additional upper canyon gage as part of the study. Ronnie Barcak of ACOE told me today that it is very possible that ACOE would like to partner in the effort for designing and installing a low head concrete weir and flow gage in the upper canyon of Lowell Creek. This is because a second gage will add a significant public safety element to the Corps present effort of monitoring flood flows in Lowell Canyon, particularly those that may carry debris large enough to block the tunnel entrance. Having the upper canyon gage will allow large and fast flood flows to be detected before they reach the tunnel, and if the upper gage is reading much greater than the tunnel outlet, this may be clear and quick indication of a blockage that could lead to a flood hazard for the City. The remaining 95% of the time, the upper canyon gage would provide the gold standard flow data that can be used by the City to determine a flow duration curve for the hydro project. Ronnie Barcak said that ACOE would be open to a meeting directly with the City and site visit in October to establish what effort is needed to design and install the upper canyon gage station. This meeting can include the DNR hydrologist also; the support of both ACOE and DNR can be had for this effort without direct cost to the City. There are ten hours of billable time left in the YCE contract for agency coordination that are available for me to organize and attend this meeting. The outcome of the meeting would give clear direction to the City on how to proceed with getting the weir and gage designed and installed. It is likely that the upper canyon gage effort can be included in the existing feasibility study for the new tunnel that is already underway by ACOE. Funds for construction of a concrete weir may come from grants or congressional allocation; both Lisa Murkowski and Don Young are very supportive of hydro projects and may be helpful in securing funding for construction. I will recommend at the PACAB meeting tomorrow following my summary of the Evalaution that the City proceed with the suggested meeting with ACOE, DNR, CIty Admin, and YCE in October, before engaging services of a hydrologist. Again, without the flow gages in place, the hydrologist cannot analyze flow data. I trust that you understand this more direct path to moving forward at this time, versus hiring AWR to prepare a scope for a scope of work. The design and install of the upper canyon weir and gage is far more a hard civil engineering project and the suggested ACOE/DNR/YCE/COS meeting is a very cost effective approach to this challenge at this time. Best Regards, Andy Baker, PE YourCleanEnergy LLC Spam Phish/Fraud Not spam Forget previous vote 2