U.S. Water News Online
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- A federal judge has been asked to lift a decade-old injunction barring the use of Russell Dam's reversible turbines for commercial hydropower production.
In a request filed by the Justice Department, the Army Corps of Engineers cites $34 million in environmental studies and fish protection programs as evidence the reversible units can operate without harming the environment.
``The Corps of Engineers has gone above and beyond what would normally be required of an agency to assure that the Russell turbines can operate in an environmentally acceptable manner,'' said spokesman Jim Parker.
The $600 million project on the Savannah River has four reversible turbines built to pump water from Thurmond Lake back to Lake Russell for reuse in power production.
When the turbines are reversed, fish are sucked inside and killed. The fish kills sparked a 1988 lawsuit against the corps by the state of South Carolina, the National Wildlife Federation, and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation. The plaintiffs won an injunction requiring the corps to prove the turbines can be used safely before the dam can produce commercial hydropower.
The corps acknowledges the turbines would kill millions of fish per year, but contends those fish are less than 1 percent of Thurmond Lake's fish population, rendering the numbers insignificant.
Parker noted that the main species killed by the turbines -- blueback herring and threadfin shad -- are so abundant in many Georgia lakes that their burgeoning populations are becoming a management problem.
But Angela Vining, executive director of the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, said there are lingering concerns.
``The fact is that billions of fish will get chopped up, and you can't say that has no impact,'' she said.
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