PUD halts Sunset Falls hydropower project

The Snohomish County PUD has tabled plans for the Sunset Falls Fish Passage and Energy Project after new projections came in showing the proposed energy resource might not be needed for another decade.

“Our planning process has concluded that our considerable success with energy conservation by the utility and its customers has helped minimize the need for new energy resources,” said PUD

Commission president Kathy Vaughn in an April 11 news release. “However, if higher growth occurs over the longer term, 10 years or beyond, the PUD could seek out additional energy resources in the mid-2020s time period.”

The PUD has been exploring creating a hydropower project on the South Fork of the Skykomish River since 2009, and in January 2016 it filed a draft license application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The three-member PUD Board of Commissioners decided against pursuing a final federal license after reviewing its latest Integrated Resource Plan, which is updated every two years, said Scott Spahr, Snohomish County PUD’s generation engineering manager.

“Because of market factors, including a lot of our conservation programs, we’re not seeing the load growth to necessitate going forward with the project,” Spahr tells the Monitor.

Spahr said the utility district has spent around $9 million on the project, which included 18 different studies required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It’s hard to say how long those reports will remain viable, he said.

“That’s something that’s on a case by case basis,” Spahr said. “You can imagine that your studies of geology will never change, but you know, if we were to reintroduce something at a future date, it would be up to the agencies and the federal government to determine which studies are still relevant.”

The final design and construction of the Sunset Falls hydropower project was estimated at midrange to cost around $149 million, and around $170 million with all added contingencies, Spahr said.

The project had been contentious, with several residents living near Sunset Falls opposing the project, particularly concerned about plans to use dynamite to blast bedrock and create subterranean tunnels for diverting water from the Skykomish River to a powerhouse at the base of Sunset Falls.

“The tunneling effort and the blasting, it’s definitely one that grabs people’s attention,” Spahr said, “and I spent a lot of time explaining to people it’s not this big, uncontrolled explosion like people see in the movies.”

Residents living in the area have also been concerned about a hillside south of Sunset Falls that has been sliding since December 2013.

The April 11 news release states Sunset Falls was just one of many viable hydropower project sites researched by the utility district. Two projects that did end up being completed were developed at Hancock and Calligan creeks above Snoqualmie Falls, and funded through the issuance of bonds.

“I can’t say specifically, but I’m sure it had very little impact on any rates, because of how it was funded,” Spahr said. “Sunset probably would have been bond funded as well.”