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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBradley Lake PMC Meeting Wednesday, June 10, 2009 2Bradley Lake Project Management Committee Meeting ALASKA ENERGY AUTHORITY Regular Meeting Public Notice Bradley Lake Project Management Committee Notice is hereby given that the Bradley Lake Project Management Committee will hold a regular meeting on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. For additional information contact Brad Evans, Chairman. This meeting will be conducted by electronic media pursuant to AS 44.88.050(a) and AS 44.62.310 at the following location: Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority Boardroom, 813 West Northern Lights Boulevard, Anchorage, Alaska; The public is invited to attend. The State of Alaska (AIDEA) complies with Title Il of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Disabled persons requiring special modifications to participate should contact AIDEA staff at (907) 771-3000 to make arrangements. Attachments, History, Details Attachments None Revision History Created 6/1/2009 6:08:47 AM by bjfuglestad Modified 6/1/2009 2:08:47 PM by bjfuglestad Details Department: Category: Sub-Category: Location(s): Project/Regulation #: Publish Date: Archive Date: Events/Deadlines: Commerce, Community and Economic Development Public Notices Anchorage 6/1/2009 6/11/2009 BRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES (via electronic media in the AEA Board Room) Anchorage, Alaska Wednesday, June 10, 2009 — 10:00 a.m. Jo CALL TO ORDER Chair Evans called the regular meeting of the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project Management Committee to order at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at the AEA Board Room, Anchorage, Alaska, to conduct the business of the Committee per the agenda and public notice. 2s ROLL CALL Roll was called by Shauna Howell. The following members were present: Harvey Ambrose Homer Electric Association Brad Evans Chugach Electric Association Brian Newton Golden Valley Electric Association (teleconference) Jim Posey Anchorage Municipal Light and Power Bryan Carey Alaska Energy Authority Gary Kuhn Matanuska Electric Association (teleconference) _ City of Seward 3. PUBLIC ROLL CALL Shauna Howell, AEA Shelby Weems, AEA Carol Harviston, ARECA Insurance Marilyn Leland, ARECA Insurance Marge Cabanski, AEA Rick Eckert, HEA Bob Price, AML&P Rick Miller, AML&P Linda MacMillan, AEA Bob Day, HEA BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 1 of 6 4. PUBLIC COMMENT There were no public comments. 5. AGENDA COMMENTS There were no agenda comments. 6. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES — February 26, 2009 and April 23, 2009 MOTION: Mr. Newton moved to approve the minutes of the February 26, 2009 meeting. Seconded by Mr. Posey. The meeting minutes were unanimously approved. MOTION: Mr. Posey moved to approve the minutes of the April 23, 2009 meeting. Seconded by Mr. Carey. The meeting minutes were unanimously approved. te NEW BUSINESS 7A. Presentation of Fish Water Release Mr. Carey stated that Terror Lake has a trial permit modification from FERC on their fish water releases so that they can go 7.5% below what the required minimums are for short periods of time as long as they are up to the minimums for the day. The problem we have at Bradley is that we are gauged 8 miles away from the dam — if it even pops up for a 15 minute interval on to the USGS gauge, at that point we are under violation with our FERC permit. That happens about two or three times per year. The fish water releases can be raised to prevent going into violation so frequently. We are trying to get a better handle on controlling how much water is being released and run it closer to what the minimums are and do a trial FERC modification permit just like the one at Terror Lake. It seems like the resource agencies are not against it and cost-wise we are looking at $25 — $50,000 total of which $10 — $20,000 may be mitigation of fish and game such as a fish survey of the lower Bradley river. In the case of 1 cfs over a year’s time we are consuming 100 megawatts - that comes out to about $72,000. It could be that by running the releases much closer to the minimums with this permit modification we could be saving $200,000 or $300,000 in terms of water each year. There will be some additional work that has to go on in regards to how dispatch at CEA talks to the operators down there so that the operators will know if we go more than the 7.5% below but they can’t be watching their gauges all day long, so there will have to be some work on the coordination of that. Chair Evans asked if the icing and seasonal conditions care for the equipment was well enough so that it would reliably tell us where we were at. Mr. Carey noted that a suggestion for the icing at the gauge would be to put a camera there and operators could see what icing is occurring. For icing that occurs in the canyon, that typically occurs BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 2 of 6 during the spring months when we have a lot of snow melt. Currently the operators set the releases high just knowing that overnight when no one is watching the gauge levels that it is going to start freezing up — this way having a 24 hour rolling average we will be able to set the release amount during the night time as being a lot closer to what is being required. If it does freeze up we can still catch up with it the next day in terms of opening up the gauges farther. Chair Evans asked if there are fry in the lower river year-round? Mr. Carey replied that during the winter it is the eggs and it is actually thought, without having any type of proof, that we actually have more salmon there now than we did when Bradley was built just because the regulation of the river has allowed greater habitat usage. It is from that standpoint that with the money to be spent, that it may be that Fish & Game request $10,000 to do a fish survey and from that stand point we can prove that having a hydro here is actually beneficial to the salmon. He also added that he was talking about a survey to see what was in there — through discussions with fish and game and what is incurred in regards to Terror Lake. Chair Evans asked if we would get all of the life cycle information — how long they are in there, when they are flushed out? Mr. Carey stated that it wouldn't be the life cycle information because they have all of that information. It would be information such as has the habitat changed and are there more spawning areas and greater numbers of salmon. There has been a teleconference with resource agencies and they will let us know what information they want from us. A month after that we will do a formal proposal to them to do the modification trial. The formal letter will be disbursed and get concurrence from them and then go to FERC letting them know we have gone to the resource agencies and they are all in agreement with us about proceeding on this path. Chair Evans asked when they needed the funds. Mr. Carey stated this was discussed with the O&D and Jim Thrall. Jim’s time is worth $5,000 - $10,000 for the entire amount and we are using it under the engineering support. If Fish & Game wants to have some type of study, that would be $5,000 - $10,000 mitigation that we could come back and request that. Mr. Day added that the item was put in the budget for Middle Fork equipment check improvements and fish water for $55,000. Some of that will be spent for equipment. Most of what Mr. Carey spoke on is already in the budget. Chair Evans asked Mr. Carey to provide a schedule of what hope to accomplish in the remainder of this budget year. 7B. O&D Report on Bradley Unit Trips Mr. Day stated that there had been a number of trips at Bradley Lake and he is now reporting back to the group on those. On March 23, 2009, Bradley Unit 2 tripped and went off line. There was ‘misbehavior’ out of the system and Bradley contributed to that. The root cause was a vibration sensor on the Nikiski machine which tripped off 40 megawatts. Bradley was in condense mode and it tried to come out of that and there is a mode that is designed into the new governor that is the divider BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 3 of 6 mode 2, which makes Bradley very aggressive in controlling frequency. It swung the system around extensively. In order to mitigate that, they are working with VA Tech and have a procedure to remove divider mode 2. We will move the set mode at 24 hertz so it won't go into divider mode 2. Waiting on technical guidance from VA Tech to implement that. Chair Evans asked if there was any use as a last ditch effort to set that one-tenth of a hertz higher than the mechanical throw out bolts on turbines? Mr. Day responded that Mr. Burlingame looked at it from that standpoint and it pushes things around too much. This is an easy way to disable it. The 115 kv ring bus opened up and we couldn't determine why. We believe there used to be an old breaker back-up that used to be implemented there — there are some notes in the original documents. We didn’t want to get in there and test that because it opens up the ring bus. That is on our agenda for the planned outage coming up in July. We will investigate the back-up scheme. It’s breaker failure and information about if one of the two lines is out of service and you are above 50 megawatts you'll trip one of the machines — there are some limitations and strange wiring hidden in the back that we are unable to get good documentation and investigation on. Also, while that had us in single mode operation, we took the opportunity to do our annual relay testing. Normally the relay technician plugs a test block into the relay, does his test and unplugs it. On this particular relay, when it was plugged in, it tripped the unit. We investigated it, found nothing wrong except that maybe when he put in the test block he put it in a little crooked. To prevent any further problems, we lifted all of the trip leads before we inserted the test block. On March 25, 2009, the gate configuration is such that if you lose power at the gate house the inlet to the penstock will close automatically. There is a 3-fold system at the gate house — a main power, backup power and emergency generator plus an inverter that is all supposed to carry you through any kind of outages or problems. During the 23% there were oscillations through the system, the transfer switch at the gate house ‘went crazy’ trying to follow all of this and got itself in a mode where it hung up in between states. The inverter powered the gate house for the next two and a half days. Once the inverter ran out of battery power, the power failed and the gate shut. We lost the unit on low penstock pressure. It is a matter of human to machine interface. The SCADA points we monitor are not as clear as they should be on loss of power, loss of AC. The loss of AC relay is loss of AC and it means the gates are going closed, but that means your communication is down and your RTU is down and you don't get that alarm. We have a number of improvements to make at the gate house in terms of putting in a new RTU, putting in new points, putting in new alarms and enunciation and making sure we are monitoring the incoming AC, the inverter AC, whether the generator is running or not, so that the operator and dispatcher at CEA will have full knowledge of what is going on and that will prevent any further problem like this. Had we noticed we were on inverter power at the gate house on the 24" this wouldn’t have been a problem, but we were not aware. 7C. BPMC Budget Policy The budget policy was tabled until the next meeting. BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 4 of 6 7D. Update on FERC Land Use Fees Protest Mr. Gibson gave a briefing on the protest. He stated that the protest is made up of 11 utilities. The legal expenses of the group will be allocated per each share pro-rata share of federal land within the project. This puts the BPMC at 10.5% of the total bills. Background information was gathered on the land use classification, how Alaska classifies the area around the geographical decision and how isolated Bradley is and the non-project uses on the federal land, which is subsistence hunting and fishing and some camping, as well as the non-allocable project land (farming). This information went to attacking the agricultural index that they now use. FERC’s underlying contention is the projects fully encumber, meaning doesn't allow any other use of the land, and the problems with Bradley Lake is that the Kenai peninsula has all of the same classifications so downtown Homer has the same classification as Bradley Lake. In our permit request it talks about the transmission line being in wetlands and can only be repaired by helicopter and then access to the project itself is by air or water. We are waiting to hear FERCs ruling on the request for re-hearing. We think that FERC is waiting to see who has paid and who hasn't. Because we were not in the original nine utilities protected by the court, the group went ahead and filed an appeal of the bills on our behalf and Seattle’s behalf. They used the same analysis and work as they did on the other one. The BPMC group approved $30,000. We received a memo from the attorneys and they spent more time than they thought on the original work and they had to add extra work because of the two late-comers (Bradley Lake and Seattle) but they used some of the information. They had $125,000 in bills so far but they wrote it down $25,000 to $100,000 and they think there is probably $50,000 more work involved. We have forks in the road that we can decide if we want to go forward and how much and maybe we benefit from the group as a whole from this point forward. Chair Evans asked how do you protect the individuality of a project in this group? Mr. Gibson responded that they are protecting us very well on the individuality on the nature of it. They went into a fairly extensive description of what is in our permit. Chair Evans asked since we are in a pool, do you think there is a risk of a compromise that splits it down the middle and some got a fair resolution and some got less than fair resolution out of it? Mr. Gibson responded that they pick a system to value land and then they apply it on all of the different dams. If they pick a general index of any type, you are always at risk of individual projects being abused by that index. Then the question being - is there a process in there that you can show that yes, you are using the index but it doesn’t apply to me. The question came up of when we have to pay. Mr. Gibson noted that the bill has already been paid in protest. Also to be noted, the last time they gave a refund, it took seven years for the dams to receive it. 8A. Operators Report Mr. Day presented the group with two handouts. We are at 43% of our average. There is very little snow pack. It is the first time I’ve ever been to the dam on the first of May and very little action with BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 5 of 6 the bulldozer to get there. The peninsula received significant ash fall and that accelerated the snow melt. There wasn’t much snow to accelerate, but what was there is almost gone. We are at or near the average for this time of year. Also noted is that Aaron Reemer has resigned. They are interviewing for a replacement. They are investigating the backup breaker scheme. Had a fail to start on May 31°. Had an outage on the tie line with no blackout. Unit 2 failed to start. An air pressure sensor had hung up on it — once that was restored the machine started and ran correctly. All of the corrective actions at the gate house, as well as some SF6 inspection and exciter stability study to do. Need to go back to Nuka glacier to see if there is any work to be done soon, as well as power tunnel cleaning, air monitoring, installations, clean and paint the diversion pipe. Transmission tower jacking was also in the budget. The O&D met and decided on a Chair/Vice Chair rotation. HEA will be the Chair and a Vice Chair will alternate through the committee, because HEA is on top of the project and can make the reports and call the meetings easier than someone else. Lastly, there is equipment on order that will be placed on Middle-Fork to give an indication on what is coming into the Middle-Fork for fish flows and that is a piece of the equation for the lower Bradley river so we can get tighter control and keep the water in the dam. Mr. Carey noted a change — the Vice Chair is AEA and is not rotating. Mr. Carey also asked that the utilities update their representative and alternate letters. 8B. Next Meeting Date The next meeting will be at the call of the Chair. 9. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 11:07 a.m. BY: Ean) ad Evans, Chair ATTEST: Alaska Energy hority, Secretary BPMC June 10, 2009 Meeting Page 6 of 6 Bradley Lake PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING wed 10 ote Atye4 Ach based Boor ocation PLEASE SIGN IN No. NAME REPRESENTING 1 eee Ho welt AEA 2| Bob Rice hie 3 Z Bye x Ana osE HEVYA- 4 Bogan Daa PEL eae aaa Goa ca ae 6 vib Leland ARS CA \niwauce al eee ee AKECK J nSavaneyv 12 13 14 15 16 1; 18 19 20 21 22) 92Q2\IT9884 Apel Mindes DMne “Posey Unaninws st yee Carte Ay prove Diseegine me ete LAL e hye ob. fe min. prtervae bioltOln he cote vide L totaling be tach ater yCMeadeh | PA) | Fied, Clde, Peace. ~ Dagar Coney f A 4 Po? aah Snr re doestsc [oer Contd be_ savirs, &-30d ocala ns ai tte teh ies scirg, Y Sa s6nl_ hie oe f95-50,002 fies ose (Ong @ Caryor lt Sr Aa, He, L995 fw cept ee nein [fe cle en. FQRL —-CrAre Lede a a 2 Chew je budge f 35m sere Tre Ogeip a— Aol 2 — 3/23 @ §.30 Heo hom. 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[= ANASK BRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING AGENDA Wednesday, June 10, 2009 — 10:00 a.m. (via electronic media at the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s Board Room — 813 West Northern Lights Boulevard, Anchorage, AK) 1. CALLTO ORDER“ Evans 2 ROLL CALL (for Committee members) \~ at PUBLIC ROLL CALL (for all others present) —~ 4. PUBLIC COMMENT\~ 5. AGENDA COMMENTS / MOTION FOR APPROVAL 6. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES February 26, 2009 we April 23, 2009 . — % NEW BUSINESS A. Presentation on Fish Water Release Y — _ Carey B. O&D Report on Bradley Unit Trips in le _ 5 Day C. BPMC Budget Policy (ACTION ITEM) fotke te ae a lf Cunningham D. Update on FERC Land Use Fees Protest><_ te Gibson 8. COMMITTEE REPORTS / COMMENTS A. Operators Report Dory B. Next Meeting Date Evans 9. ADJOURNMENT 813 West Northern Lights Boulevard * Anchorage, Alaska 99503-2495 www.aidea.org * 907/771-3000 * FAX 907/771-3044 ® Toll Free (Alaska Only) 888/300-8534 * www.akenergyauthority.org Agenda Item: 7¢ Operations and Maintenance: Bradley Project Management Committee (BPMC) approval for budget changes will be required if the projected budget surplus or deficit is greater than $250,000. Variation among the individuaK\line items of the budget will not require BPMC approval. Renewal and Contingency Fund Projects: Capital projects approved by the BPMC and exceeding $500,000 will be funded out of the Renewal and Contingency Fund (R&C Fund) which provides for repayment to the fund over a four year period. Other capital projects will be considered part of the Operations and Maintenance budget unless otherwise directed by the Operations and Dispatch (O&D) and Budget Subcommittees and approved by the BPMC. BPMC approval, based on O&D Subcommittee cane will be required for a R&C Fund project increase greater than $250,000. U (25s +thad Cyc 00 Ws MOTION: Move to adopt the above stated budget policy. oh Cow Ae Move: Second: — BRADLEY PMC VOTING DATE: /6/2£O Agenda Item No. ae ie 4 FC Neil Col YES NO ABS YES NO ABS YES NO ABS CITY OF SEWARD 01% a MATANUSKA ELEC ASSOC —:14% FE pe eo CHUGACH ELEC ASSOC 30% FE HOMER ELEC ASSOC 12% AE GOLDEN VAL ELEC ASSOC 17% Ze we [ MUNI LIGHT & POWER 26% WT ALASKA ENERGY AUTHORITY | A=4+ OVER 51% B= AEA CONCUR With A C = UNANIMOUS D = MAJORITY VOTING METHOD A: 3) Establishment of FY estimated annual 11) Determination of rules, procedures and Requiring four yeas with 51% of utilities, with no AEA vote: 1) Procedures for scheduling, production and dispatch of project power. 2) Establishment of procedures for use of each purchaser's water allocation (AEA assent required for license requirements). 3) Selection among alternative methods that do not involve AEA for funding required project work. VOTING METHOD B: Requiring 4 yeas with 51% of utilities and AEA concurrence: 1) Arranging operation and maintenance of project. 2) Adoption of budget of annual project costs. VOTE(93Q3/BC5272) payment obligation and schedule of each purchaser. 4) Determination of annual project costs after each FY. 5) Evaluation of necessity for and scheduling of required project work. 6) Determination of appropriate amount of insurance. 7) Adoption of additional minimum funding amounts for renewal and contingency reserve fund above that required by bond resolution. 8) Selection among alternate methods that involve AEA for funding required project work. 9) Adoption or amendment of procedural committee rules (except dispute resolution). 10) Adoption of project maintenance schedules. accounts necessary to manage project when no bonds outstanding. 12) Evaluation and approval of optional project work and compensation for such work. 13) Application of insurance claims proceeds not governed by bond resolution. 14) Approval of procedures and any individual utility agreements relating to electric power reserves for project. 15) Approval of consultants. VOTING METHOD C: Unanimous vote by all (including AEA) VOTING METHOD D: Majority vote (including AEA) Election of Officers ECA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle ithrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 MEMORANDUM December 9, 2008 To: Bryan Carey (AEA), John Magee (R&M), Bob Day (HEA) From: Jim Thrall Subject: Bradley Lake Fish Water Releases On November 25, 2008 | traveled to the Bradley Lake Project with Bob Day, to review operations staff practices when operating the fish water valves to meet the project's required minimum flow and to better understand the data on average daily releases that had been provided to me. Information Obtained In the course of my discussions with the project operators | was given the following information: 1. The operators have access to real time flow readings at the USGS gage immediately below the dam and at tidewater (the site where the minimum flow requirement is enforced). However, adjustments to the valve release settings are not automated and are only made sporadically (as their many other duties allow). 2. They adjust fish water valve release levels by checking flow at tidewater as shown at the USGS gage. Often, valve settings are checked and adjusted once in the morning when the operators come on shift and are only re-adjusted if they receive an alarm or notice a change in flow at the tidewater gage. 3. Because they have other duties that take up much of their time they set the fish water system to over release by a significant amount (up to 25%) to minimize the risk of going into violation (they are aware that going into violation will result in negative feedback but are not aware of any incentive for conserving water). Releases are also set well above the required minimum at night when no one is on duty at the power house 4. Inthe early 1990s a program was developed to automate operation of the fish water valve system (by Surveilent/Quindar). It is installed on the SCADA but apparently was not integrated in to the system to allow automated adjustment of the valves. According to the operators this linkage was not made because, at the time, it was not possible to calculate the releases through the valves accurately. It was also reported that due to time and money constraints this portion of the SCADA upgrade was not completed. Since then, velocity meters have been installed in the fish water valve system and currently operators can read releases quickly and with accuracy. However, as stated above, the necessary programming to automation of the fish water release system has not been done. It is the operators understanding that the cost to complete this is in the range of $25,000. Bob day subsequently indicates that this cost estimate may be too KCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle thrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 low. The operators understand that Kathy Heidel, HEA’s SCADA expert has information on the cost to do this. 5. Apparently Chugach Electric, which dispatches power from the project and has 24 hour per day staffing also sees minimum flow release data on their SCADA system and have an alarm that sounds at Bradley Lake when it detects a potential violation. However, they are not charged with managing the fish water system and the Bradley Lake operators believe that the Chugach alarm settings differ from those on the SCADA system at the powerhouse. The alarm settings vary during different times of the year. According to Bob Day it is not know if a formal process is in place to insure that the alarms on the Chugach SCADA system are correctly synchronized with the true alarm values. It was not clear to me if Chugach receives the same real time USGS data as that provided to the power house SCADA. 6. The operators also report that they see a significant difference between the flow readings they receive from the velocity sensors (which they feel are quite accurate) and the flows at the USGS gage immediately below the dam. They report that there is often as much as a 10 cfs difference between these two readings. While such differences could occur during rainy weather during fair weather conditions the two sets of data should agree. 7. The operators also report that the valves have some minor problems and are overdue for maintenance. In their opinion they require fairly significant annual maintenance. In particular the actuator(s) are subject to stress. At present they have difficulty with one valve, MOV 2, and have maintenance scheduled for it when they again have access to the dam. 8. Finally, they clarified that the daily fish water release values that they provided me for use in my analysis of the historical releases are not average daily flows but once per day readings (taken in the morning) from their log. However, they also have acre feet per day values that are based on averaging the releases over the entire day. These were provided to me. Unfortunately these data also seem to have problems. Some of the numbers agree fairly well with the USGS data from the gage below the dam but in other instances the data collected by the project show extreme differences between both USGS gages. | have not input these data into my spread sheet. Because of the questionable data sets provided to me | am not absolutely certain that | have average daily information for all the years of my analysis. Conclusions and Recommendations ! was tasked with investigating the potential for implementation of a 24 hour, rolling average approach to monitoring and compliance with the Bradley Lake minimum flow requirement, similar to that that has been approved at the Terror Lake project. Given the many similarities between the minimum flow requirements and physical features of the two projects, it is obvious that savings similar to those expected at Terror Lake should be possible at Bradley Lake as well. However, as also was the case at Terror Lake, the resource agencies are likely to require that water management practices at Bradley Lake be improved before they support modification of the existing monitoring procedure. Thus, | would recommend that, before the agencies are approached on this issue a serious effort be made to improve operation of the fish water release system. In my opinion, the potential savings that can be achieved by such an effort justify the expenditure of substantial amounts of both time and money. HCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle jthrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 While uncertainty as to the accuracy of some of the fish water release historical data makes it difficult to estimate the amount of excess water being released at the project it is likely quite high. My analysis, using the best data sets | could assemble, indicates that, on average, an excess of some 12,000 acre feet of water is released at the fish water valves each year (see attached summary table and explanation of the basis of this estimate). While this value is, at best, a rough estimate and represents the total amount of water that might be saved if it were possible to only release exactly the amount of water needed to meet the required minimum flow, it does provide a good indication that a significant amount of water is being lost due to over release. Even if only 25% of this loss were prevented and assuming a value of $100 per acre foot of water, some $300,000 of additional power revenue could be realized annually with improved water management practices. Thus, improving the management of the fish water release system seems an obvious task to be addressed. Actions that should be considered include the following, 1. Provide operations staff with a clearly defined set of guidelines for determining how much of a buffer to include when setting the release values (10% rather that 25% ?) and provide training and incentives to assist them in reducing the amount of over release. 2. Clarify the discrepancy between the USGS gage information and the data provided by the velocity sensors at the dam. 3. Provide an automatic data retention system so that accurate data from the fish water releases will be archived so that analysis will be able to determine proper operation or adjustments. 4. Investigate the possibility of improved coordination/cooperation between the power house operations staff and personnel at the Chugach dispatch center to allow for 24 hour monitoring of the fish water releases. 5. Investigate the possibility of completing the linkage between the current SCADA program that provide information on flows in the river, minimum flow requirements and releases at the dam to allow a computer control of the system, with provision for operator manual over ride as needed. If deemed feasible, implement automation of the system. 6. Investigate the potential value of providing the power house with a weather camera connection to the lower river gage site to better monitor ice and tide conditions. 7. Begin preliminary discussions with ADF&G, ADNR, NMFS and USFWS concerning the ongoing efforts to improve water management practices at the project and the longer range goal of modification of the monitoring requirements in a manner similar to the changes implemented at Terror Lake. 8. Informally convey the same information to FERC at the Portland Regional Office during the next planned annual meeting with them. HCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle jthrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 Calculated Over release of Water from the Bradley Lake Fish Water System 1999 -2007 jan feb mar apr may av/month Average cfs “over release by month and year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 avcfs/month __av aft/month Average acft /yr 12,812 Cfs and ac ft/yr values were calculated as follows: Values used Average daily values (in cfs) for: Assum ¢ amount of water released at the dam ¢ amount gaged by UGS at the lower river ¢ required minimum flow at the lower river gage site ption ¢ Total flow at lower river gage = flow released at fish water valves + inflow from basin below the dam and other tributaries. Calculations Basin inflow 1. Lower river gage — valve release at dam = basin inflow Theoretical required valve release 2. Daily minimum flow requirement — basin inflow = required valve release Over release 3. Valve release — required valve release = over release Acre feet per month conversion ((Average daily flow in cfs X 86,400 seconds/day)/43,569 sq ft / acre) X number of days /month E mer Electric 4._sociation, Inc. Corporate Office Central Peninsula Service Center 3977 Lake Street 280 Airport Way Homer, Alaska 99603-7680 Kenai, Alaska 99611-5280 Phone (907) 235-8551 Phone (907) 283-5831 FAX (907) 235-3313 FAX (907) 283-7122 A Touchstone Energy" Cooperative 1X To: Whom it May Concern From: Aaron Remer Subject: March 23-09 Bradley Unit 2 trip Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 On or about 8:30 am, the system lost the 69K V line leading to U2 trying to pick up the load. The unit was in condense at the time and then shifted to generate mode in divider | mode. The load and frequency of the system was cycling dramatically, and thus the unit voltage was also swinging significantly to the extent that the automatic voltage regulator trip relay initiated which subsequently actuated the over excitation-under excitation trip relay which in turn tripped the mechanical trip relay. The unit tripped and came to rest in a safe condition as expected. One anomaly was noted in that the 115K V ring bus tie breaker PCB-4 and feeder breaker PCB-3 opened. Based on a review of the annunciator corrective actions and the logic diagrams, the breakers should not have opened for any of the trip relays, over excitation/under excitation, voltage regulator or mechanical trip. Research is ongoing to investigate the possibility of an old breaker trip scheme driven by line relays which at one time existed or perhaps still exist. Additional information will be communicated as the investigation proceeds. Sincerely, C Aaron Remer H mer Electric A_sociation, Inc. Corporate Office Central Peninsula Service Center 3977 Lake Street 280 Airport Way Homer, Alaska 99603-7680 Kenai, Alaska 99611-5280 Phone (907) 235-8551 Phone (907) 283-5831 FAX (907) 235-3313 FAX (907) 283-7122 A Touchstone Energy’ Cooperative IDX To: Whom it May Concern From: Aaron Remer Subject: March 24"-09 Bradley Unit 2 trip Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 On or about 1730, U2 tripped when the “A” phase differential current actuated. The actuation of the trip relay was a result of in-progress relay testing. Several other protective relays had been tested with no negative impact to the operating Unit using the same test instrumentation. Inspection of the relay did not indicate any notable problems with the relay or the test block. The technician did indicate when the test block was inserted he heard a slight arcing sound in conjunction with the trip. The relay was installed, prestart conditions satisfied and The Unit was restored to operation by 1747. On-line relay testing is a common practice but has on occasion caused a unit trip in the industry. The remaining protective relays were tested, however prior to the testing the leads on the relay were lifted to prevent the possibility of initiating another event. Sincerely, C Aaron Remer BH mer Electric A sociation, Inc. Corporate Office Central Peninsula Service Center 3977 Lake Street 280 Airport Way Homer, Alaska 99603-7680 Kenai, Alaska 99611-5280 Phone (907) 235-8551 Phone (907) 283-5831 FAX (907) 235-3313 FAX (907) 283-7122 A Touchstone Energy" Cooperative 12x To: Whom it May Concern From: Aaron Remer Subject: Bradley Lake 3/25/09 Trip Report Date: March 25, 2009 At or about eleven am, the Bradley Lake Unit tripped on low penstock pressure while previously loaded to approximately 40MW and came to rest in a safe condition. With the trip came-the failure of all RTU’s associated with the power tunnel gate house giving indication that the control gate was in the process of closing down. Operators were dispatched to the gate house and upon arrival found that there was no power inside the house. Investigation revealed the Motor Operated Breaker (MOB) was tripped open which feeds power to the gate house and the various control apertures within; upon closure of the breaker, power was restored. The said breaker is designed to open on a loss of power activating a transfer switch which starts the back-up diesel generator to maintain the gate house control functions. The breaker and transfer switch were cycled several time and functioned properly. During the plant predations leading up to a trip Monday March 23™, multiple open and close signals were delivered to the MOB within seconds, causing the MOB and transfer switch attempt to respond which physically they cannot do in the said time frame. It is believed, that as a result of this rapid cycling and when the power was restored, the MOB did not reclose and the transfer switch did not reposition. Given the lack of power in the gatehouse, control functions were maintained by the battery backed inverter until it powered down today. Follow up actions from this trip will 1) return to the gatehouse and attempt to recreate the loss of power by opening a disconnect upstream of the MOB. 2) Based on this result and a detailed inspection, an assessment can be made as to establish corrective actions such as replacement of the MOB and or transfer switch. There exists a fast acting transfer switch which has a much greater capability to perform a transfer very quickly. The trip on Monday created a unique set of circumstances— running in condense when the 69KV line was lost and transferring to generate mode and dealing with the very significant frequency changes causing E_omer Electric 4..sociation, Inc. Corporate Office Central Peninsula Service Center 3977 Lake Street 280 Airport Way Homer, Alaska 99603-7680 Kenai, Alaska 99611-5280 Phone (907) 235-8551 Phone (907) 283-5831 FAX (907) 235-3313 FAX (907) 283-7122 AA Touchstone Energy" Cooperative Dx multiple breaker opens and auto closures and thus cycling the MOB and transfer switch repeatable and rapidly. As further details about the equipment emerge, subsequent communications will be forthcoming. Sincerely, C Aaron Remer KENAI PENINSULA‘ Northern Kenai Mtn. Snowpack* Homer Temperature inches ;—<—Current —*%—Average | | i Monthly | | =~ Maximum —*— Minimum | 30.0 25.0 odie a aT att oa , 3 £ 20.00 3 = 7 E = 2 Ss 4 Z 15.0 e a & $s Lo eel = S 10.0 < = Le. & 434 a 0.0 a Feb Mar Apr May Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar April Current Basin Conditions The southern Kenai Peninsula received significant ash fall from Redoubt volcano in March, this accelerated the snowmelt in April with no snow at several sites. The snow courses with no snow are Demonstration Forest, Bridge Creek and Eagle Lake. The SNOTEL sites include Anchor River Divide and Port Graham where the Anchor River Divide has an average of 29 inches of snow depth with 10.9 inches of water content. This is the 1° time for the Anchor River Divide site to have no snow on May 1*and a record low, the record began in 1981. The Snowmelt Runoff Indexes for four sites on the southern Kenai are much below average at -3.0. Theses sites are Anchor River near Anchor Point, Deep Creek near Ninilchik, Ninilchik River near Ninilchik and Fritz Creek near Homer. In the Northern Kenai Mountains, Snowmelt Runoff Index for Six Mile Creek near Hope is below average at -0.8. The Kenai River at Cooper Landing volume flow forecast for the May through July time period is 845,000 acre-feet of water, 95% of normal. “For more information contact the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Homer. ~24 = Kenai Peninsula SNOWPACK DATA THIS YEAR LAST YEAR 1971-2000 AVERAGE Snow Course Snow Water Snow Water Snow Water Elev. Date Depth Content Depth Content Depth Content (feet) (inches) Anchor River Divide 1650 4/30/09 0 0.0 36 16.2" 29 10.9 Bertha Creek 950 4/24/09 50 16.8 62 22.5 49 18.2 Bridge Creek 1300 4/29/09 0 0.0 37 12.3 Cooper Lake 1200 5/01/09 41 4.9 43 16.0 34 12.3 Demonstration Forest 780 4/29/09 0 0.0 21 7.4 Eagle Lake 1400 4/29/09 0 0.0 _ _ 31 11.3 Grandview , 1100 5/01/09 77 34.4 104 43.0* ri 26.3 Grouse Creek Divide 700 5/01/09 22 8.4 56 21.5 44 16.6 Jean Lake 620 4/30/09 0 0.0 - 0 0.0 2 0.5 Kachemak Creek 1660 5/01/09 10 4.0* _ _ _ _ Kenai Moose Pens m 300 5/01/09 0 0.0 6 2.6 1 0.3 Kenai Summit 1390 * 4/24/09 31 9.3 42 16.5 30 11.4 McNeil Canyon 1320 5/01/09 2 0.4 31 12.9 21 8.2 Moose Pass 700 4/24/09 7 2.5 1 44 i 2.5 Nuka Glacier 1250 5/01/09 51 20.0* 145 58.5* 93 42.4 Port Graham 300 5/01/09 0 0.0 28 5.9 10 4.0 Snug Harbor Road 500 4/30/09 0 0.0 3 1.0 12 25 Summit Creek 1400 5/01/09 18 6.0 34 12.2 18 7.3 Turnagain Pass 1880 5/01/09 78 292 130 58.4 95 40.1 estimate * - STREAMFLOW FORECASTS Forecast Point Forecast 30- Yr Average 50 % of Max- Min Period (1000AF) Percentile Average (1000AF) (1000AF) Kenai River at Cooper Landing May-Jul 890 845 95 _ 965 725 PRECIPITATION DATA . INCHES ACCUMULATED SINCE OCTOBER 1°" \ Precipitation 1971-2000 % of Gauge Elevation (feet) Date This Year Last Year Ave Average Anchor River Divide 1650 5/01/09 14.8 25.4 20.4 72 Cooper Lake 1200 5/01/09 21.4 30.4 25.1 85 Grandview 1100 5/01/09 47.0 57.4 43.1 109 Grouse Creek Divide 700 5/01/09 30.1 54.9 39.8 76 Kachemak Creek 1660 5/01/09 30.1 45.0 43.8 69 Kenai Moose Pens 300 5/01/09 10.7 8.0 9.2 116 McNeil Canyon 1320 5/01/09 12.7 20.4 17.2 74 Middle Fork Bradley** 2300 5/01/09 - 27.4 39.3 37.3 73 Nuka Glacier** 1250 5/01/09 28.3 61.4 61.1 46 Port Graham 300 5/01/09 33.0 61.3 44.6 74 Summit Creek 1400 5/01/09 15.7 19.5 17.7 89 Turnagain Pass 1880 5/01/09 32.8 56.9 45.8 72 “Wyoming shielded gauge WATERSHED SNOWPACK ANALYSIS Region / River Basin No. of Courses Percent of Last Year Percent of Average Averaged Bradley Lake/Southern Kenai Peninsula 2 0 43 Ninilchik Dome 5 7 6 3 Norther Kenai Mountains 11 55 73 Northern Kenai Flats I 0 0 -25- e. /= ALASKA @@il_ ENERGY AUTHORITY xe af +4 laska Industrial Development ih ind Export Authority BRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING AGENDA Wednesday, June 10, 2009 — 10:00 a.m. (via electronic media at the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority's Board Room — 813 West Northern Lights Boulevard, Anchorage, AK) ft CALL TO ORDER Evans 2. ROLL CALL (for Committee members) 3. PUBLIC ROLL CALL (for all others present) 4. PUBLIC COMMENT 5. AGENDA COMMENTS / MOTION FOR APPROVAL 6. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES February 26, 2009 April 23, 2009 te NEW BUSINESS A. Presentation on Fish Water Release Carey B. O&D Report on Bradley Unit Trips Day C. BPMC Budget Policy (ACTION ITEM) Cunningham D. Update on FERC Land Use Fees Protest Gibson 8. COMMITTEE REPORTS / COMMENTS A. Operators Report B. Next Meeting Date Evans 9. ADJOURNMENT 813 West Northern Lights Boulevard * Anchorage, Alaska 99503-2495 www.aidea.org * 907/771-3000 * FAX 907/771-3044 ® Toll Free (Alaska Only) 888/300-8534 * www.akenergyauthority.org BRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES (via electronic media in the Chugach Electric Association’s Board Room) Anchorage, Alaska Thursday, February 26, 2009 — 10: J CALL TO ORDER 4 adley Lake Hydroele February 26, 2009, onduct the business Chair Evans called the regular meeting of the, Committee to order at 10:00 a.m. on Thursd Association’s Board Room, Anchorage, Alaska, the agenda and public notice. 2. ROLL CALL Brad Janorschke Brad Evans Brian Newton 3. Shauna Howell, AEA . Kirk Gibson (teleconferen Rick Miller, AML&P Henri Dale, GVEA Doug Hall, AML&P Aaron Remer, HEA Linda MacMillan, AEA Mike Cunningham, CEA Burke Wick, CEA Page 1 of 4 BPMC Minutes 2/26/2009 4. PUBLIC COMMENT There were no public comments. 5. AGENDA COMMENTS New business — Brian Newton asked if there could be a discussion about AEA if there is a move to transfer Bradley Lake to the new REGA entity. Chair Evans asked in fairness to AEA, is there anyone here from AEA able to speak to that? Brya arey replied he was not able to speak to that. It will just be a utility discussion. This is a last minute addition that AEA in no way is prepared discuss today. Mr. Newton made mentio} it there could be authorization of a legal review to find out if it is permissible or exactly Cg a tra r be accomplished and what ramifications it would have. This item will be add L 6. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES he December 17}}2008 meeting. ously approved. © MOTION: Mr. Posey moved to approve the minu Seconded by Mr. Day. The meeting minutes were u 7. NEW BUSINESS TA. Update of FY’09 Budget Mr. Cunningham noted that there had been some decreases from the original budget as well as some eae experi, He then gave an Warview of the budget changes between FY09 MOTION: ~ Mr. Day » nt approve the Mr. Newton. Mr. Cunningham presented the group with budget paperwork including the overview of budget changes between FY09 and FY10 noting that the $30,000 for the replacement of the Haylon w/FM-200 in oil separator room would be taken out. Chair Evans asked that they look and see what every utility is using so they can standardize for power plant work management systems. He would like to see plant managers and IT employees getting together to try and choose a platform they can all work towards. Mr. Day noted that this has been done, but for what they want for Bradley a very compact work management system, it is just too much. They don’t have the staff support at Bradley and don’t want to put that effort into that. Page 2 0f 4 BPMC Minutes 2/26/2009 Mr. Remer was able to find the replacement to the Haylon so they would like to take out the $30,000 from the budget as it was not needed this year. Bradley over-release about a million to a million and a half dollars worth of electricity of water every year just to be sure we make sure to stay out of trouble of violations -- with better data we get closer. Chair Evans asked the operations committee to prepare a presentation for the BPMC on the fish water release. A roll call vote was taken: City of Seward Matanuska Electric Association: Chugach Electric Association: Homer Electric Association: Golden Valley Electric Association: Municipal Light & Power: Alaska Energy Authority: The motion unanimously passed. 7C: a s Agreement. They think this new organizationgw < have to be different. Mr. Posey added that due to the bo refinancing in order for us to take over. The s this to another entity, would it have to be C was in the legislation as far as this goes. Mr. Newton added that if approval was gained e actually start that process. Chair Evans will call a special meeting, subject to Kurt\Gi giving a cursory review and getting us some level of detail, enough so that he feels comfortable discussing it. 8. COMMITTEE COMMENTS / REPORTS 8A. Operators Report Mr. Day introduced Aaron Remer as a new HEA employee for Bradley Lake. Mr. Remer noted that in general the plant is running well. Mr. Remer added that there was a medical personnel Page 3 of 4 BPMC Minutes 2/26/2009 issue but that was taken care of. Mr. Day said they are trying to establish an operator-in- training qualification program with the idea of ‘growing our own operator’ for Bradley Lake. Mr. Remer explained that there would be an outage on repairs for power lines. They are going to take advantage of that three to four week period of time to get outage work done and reduce the length of the normal scheduled outage. They are continuing work on PNID drawings. Chair Evans stated that he was very concerned about the last,two events at Bradley Lake and © response problem. At least they don’t want to have the and talk about the response to the plant and the because it is such a serious issue. Meeting adjourned at 11:05 BY: Brad Evans, Chair ATTEST: Alaska Energy Authority, Secretary Page 4 of 4 BPMC Minutes 2/26/2009 BRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES SPECIAL MEETING (via teleconference in the AIDEA/AEA) Anchorage, Alaska April 23, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. 1. CALL TO ORDER ‘Chair Evans called the special meeting of the Bradley Committee to order at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, April Anchorage, Alaska, to conduct the business of the Hydroelectric Project Management ike 3, 2009), from the AIDEA/AEA Office, mmittee per th agenda and public notice. 2. ROLL CALL Roll was called by Shauna Howell. The following Brad Janorschke Homer Electric Association (telecon Brad Evans Chugach Electric Association (telecor Henri Dale Golden Valley Electric Association (teleconference) --- Anchorage Municipal, Light and Power onference) Bryan Carey Alaska Energy Authority - --- Matanuska Electric Association --- City of Seward S 3. PUBLIC ROLL CALL Brian Bjorkquist Mark Johnson, G EA (teleconfa er nce) Mike Cunningh li i (telec ference) Burke Wick, CEA sonterenpal Don Zoerb, MEA ia ecenteren Bob Day, HEA (telecon Aaron Remer, HEA (teleconfe erence) Ken Langford, AML&P (teleconference) John Foutz, City of Seward (teleconference) 4. PUBLIC COMMENT There were no public comments. Page 1 of 3 BPMC Minutes 4/23/09 5. NEW BUSINESS 5A. FERC Land Use Fees Discussion ensued as to the increase of the land use fees. Motion: Mr. Janorschke moved that the Bradley Lake PMC approve the hiring of the Van Ness Feldman, P.C. firm for joining in the protest on the land use fees. Seconded by Mr. Dale. Mr. Johnson briefed the group on the appeal noting that th group of utilities in the Lower 48. He has reviewed the brief administrative law practitioner and decision maker that arguments that are raised are primarily related to th ep adopting rules from the forest service. His opinion is that the | “arguments raised are very solid and the record does not reflect that FERC independently considered and assessed the appropriateness of the piece. He considers thi very interesting litigation at this point and thinks this has a decent chance of success. uld urge people to si ae the legal work. appeal was filed on behalf of a 3elieves in the eyes of a former Ss a well crafted brief and the cess is employed by a FERC in oN d manage thse S going forward. He Chair Evans said it needed to be discussed ho itk,Gi who would lo Ik into this matter. asked if anyone had an issue with Chair Evans asked that roll be called iti nbers joining in the teleconference (after the initial start of the meeting) new motion be entertained as there was now a quorum ROLL CALL 4 Roll was called by Shau J ing members were present: iation (teleconference) icipal Light and Power (teleconference) Bryan Care ( Jatin Foutz i rd (teleconference) Motion: $30, 000 es ated in the letter, for the hiring of the Van Ness Feldman, P.C. firm for joining in the protest on the FERC land use fees. Seconded by City of Seward. Discussion ensued. Chair Evans restated that he would assign Kirk Gibson to keep the BPMC posted and let the group know if this moves through as well as provide updates. Page 2 of 3 BPMC Minutes 4/23/09 A roll call vote was taken: City of Seward Yes Matanuska Electric Association: -- Chugach Electric Association: Yes Homer Electric Association: Yes Golden Valley Electric Association: Yes Municipal Light & Power: --- Alaska Energy Authority: Yes The motion unanimously passed. v ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 10:23 a.m. Page 3 of 3 BPMC Minutes 4/23/09 ECA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle ithrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 MEMORANDUM December 9, 2008 To: Bryan Carey (AEA), John Magee (R&M), Bob Day (HEA) From: Jim Thrall Subject: Bradley Lake Fish Water Releases On November 25, 2008 | traveled to the Bradley Lake Project with Bob Day, to review operations staff practices when operating the fish water valves to meet the project's required minimum flow and to better understand the data on average daily releases that had been provided to me. Information Obtained In the course of my discussions with the project operators | was given the following information: 1. The operators have access to real time flow readings at the USGS gage immediately below the dam and at tidewater (the site where the minimum flow requirement is enforced). However, adjustments to the valve release settings are not automated and are only made sporadically (as their many other duties allow). 2. They adjust fish water vaive release levels by checking flow at tidewater as shown at the USGS gage. Often, valve settings are checked and adjusted once in the morning when the operators come on shift and are only re-adjusted if they receive an alarm or notice a change in flow at the tidewater gage. 3. Because they have other duties that take up much of their time they set the fish water system to over release by a significant amount (up to 25%) to minimize the risk of going into violation (they are aware that going into violation will result in negative feedback but are not aware of any incentive for conserving water). Releases are also set well above the required minimum at night when no one is on duty at the power house 4. Inthe éarly 1990s a program was developed to automate operation of the fish water valve system (by Surveilent/Quindar). It is installed on the SCADA but apparently was not integrated in to the system to allow automated adjustment of the valves. According to the operators this linkage was not made because, at the time, it was not possible to calculate the releases through the valves accurately. It was also reported that due to time and money constraints this portion of the SCADA upgrade was not completed. Since then, velocity meters have been installed in the fish water valve system and currently operators can read releases quickly and with accuracy. However, as stated above, the necessary programming to automation of the fish water release system has not been done. It is the operators understanding that the cost to complete this is in the range of $25,000. Bob day subsequently indicates that this cost estimate may be too EKCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle jthrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 low. The operators understand that Kathy Heidel, HEA’s SCADA expert has information on the cost to do this. 5. Apparently Chugach Electric, which dispatches power from the project and has 24 hour per day staffing also sees minimum flow release data on their SCADA system and have an alarm that sounds at Bradley Lake when it detects a potential violation. However, they are not charged with managing the fish water system and the Bradley Lake operators believe that the Chugach alarm settings differ from those on the SCADA system at the powerhouse. The alarm settings vary during different times of the year. According to Bob Day it is not know if a formal process is in place to insure that the alarms on the Chugach SCADA system are correctly synchronized with the true alarm values. It was not clear to me if Chugach receives the same real time USGS data as that provided to the power house SCADA. 6. The operators also report that they see a significant difference between the flow readings they receive from the velocity sensors (which they feel are quite accurate) and the flows at the USGS gage immediately below the dam. They report that there is often as much as a 10 cfs difference between these two readings. While such differences could occur during rainy weather during fair weather conditions the two sets of data should agree. 7. The operators also report that the valves have some minor problems and are overdue for maintenance. In their opinion they require fairly significant annual maintenance. In particular the actuator(s) are subject to stress. At present they have difficulty with one valve, MOV 2, and have maintenance scheduled for it when they again have access to the dam. 8. Finally, they clarified that the daily fish water release values that they provided me for use in my analysis of the historical releases are not average daily flows but once per day readings (taken in the morning) from their log. However, they also have acre feet per day values that are based on averaging the releases over the entire day. These were provided to me. Unfortunately. these data also seem to have problems. Some of the numbers agree fairly well with the USGS data from the gage below the dam but in other instances the data collected by the project show extreme differences between both USGS gages. | have not input these data into my spread sheet. Because of the questionable data sets provided to me | am not absolutely certain that | have average daily information for all the years of my analysis. Conclusions and Recommendations | was tasked with investigating the potential for implementation of a 24 hour, rolling average approach to monitoring and compliance with the Bradley Lake minimum flow requirement, similar to that that has been approved at the Terror Lake project. Given the many similarities between the minimum flow requirements and physical features of the two projects, it is obvious that savings similar to those expected at Terror Lake should be possible at Bradley Lake as well. However, as also was the case at Terror Lake, the resource agencies are likely to require that water management practices at Bradley Lake be improved before they support modification of the existing monitoring procedure. Thus, | would recommend that, before the agencies are approached on this issue a serious effort be made to improve operation of the fish water release system. In my opinion, the potential savings that can be achieved by such an effort justify the expenditure of substantial amounts of both time and money HCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle jthrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 While uncertainty as to the accuracy of some of the fish water release historical data makes it difficult to estimate the amount of excess water being released at the project it is likely quite high. My analysis, using the best data sets | could assemble, indicates that, on average, an excess of some 12,000 acre feet of water is released at the fish water valves each year (see attached summary table and explanation of the basis of this estimate). While this value is, at best, a rough estimate and represents the total amount of water that might be saved if it were possible to only release exactly the amount of water needed to meet the required minimum flow, it does provide a good indication that a significant amount of water is being lost due to over release. Even if only 25% of this loss were prevented and assuming a value of $100 per acre foot of water, some $300,000 of additional power revenue could be realized annually with improved water management practices. Thus, improving the management of the fish water release system seems an obvious task to be addressed. Actions that should be considered include the following, 1. Provide operations staff with a clearly defined set of guidelines for determining how much of a buffer to include when setting the release values (10% rather that 25% ?) and provide training and incentives to assist them in reducing the amount of over release. 2. Clarify the discrepancy between the USGS gage information and the data provided by the velocity sensors at the dam. 3. Provide an automatic data retention system so that accurate data from the fish water releases will be archived so that analysis will be able to determine proper operation or adjustments. 4. Investigate the possibility of improved coordination/cooperation between the power house operations staff and personnel at the Chugach dispatch center to allow for 24 hour monitoring of the fish water releases. 5. Investigate the possibility of completing the linkage between the current SCADA program that provide information on flows in the river, minimum flow requirements and releases at the dam to allow a computer control of the system, with provision for operator manual over ride as needed. If deemed feasible, implement automation of the system. 6. Investigate the potential value of providing the power house with a weather camera connection to the lower river gage site to better monitor ice and tide conditions. 7. Begin preliminary discussions with ADF&G, ADNR, NMFS and USFWS concerning the ongoing efforts to improve water management practices at the project and the longer range goal of modification of the monitoring requirements in a manner similar to the changes implemented at Terror Lake. 8. Informally convey the same information to FERC at the Portland Regional Office during the next planned annual meeting with them. HCA Environmental Compliance Assistance 907 242-1449 13643 Karen Circle jthrallinak@yahoo.com Anchorage, Alaska 99515 Calculated Over release of Water from the Bradley Lake Fish Water System 1999 -2007 Average cfs “over release" by month and year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 av cfs/month av aft/month jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec av/month Average acft /yr 12,812 Cfs and ac ft/yr values were calculated as follows: Values used Average daily values (in cfs) for: ¢ amount of water released at the dam ¢ amount gaged by UGS at the lower river e required minimum flow at the lower river gage site Assumption ¢ Total flow at lower river gage = flow released at fish water valves + inflow from basin below the dam and other tributaries. Calculations Basin inflow 1. Lower river gage — valve release at dam = basin inflow Theoretical required valve release 2. Daily minimum flow requirement — basin inflow = required valve release Over release 3. Valve release — required valve release = over release Acre feet per month conversion ((Average daily flow in cfs X 86,400 seconds/day)/43,569 sq ft / acre) X number of days /month Agenda Item: 7C Operations and Maintenance: Bradley Project Management Committee (BPMC) approval for budget changes will be required if the projected budget surplus or deficit is greater than $250,000. Variation among the individual line items of the budget will not require BPMC approval. Renewal and Contingency Fund Projects: Capital projects approved by the BPMC and exceeding $500,000 will be funded out of the Renewal and Contingency Fund (R&C Fund) which provides for repayment to the fund over a four year period. Other capital projects will be considered part of the Operations and Maintenance budget unless otherwise directed by the Operations and Dispatch (O&D) and Budget Subcommittees and approved by the BPMC. BPMC approval, based on O&D Subcommittee recommendations, will be required for a R&C Fund project increase greater than $250,000. MOTION: Move to adopt the above stated budget policy. Move: Second: ‘age : af 324 per DK jes PME Dronniiteed 0H Z Com CRF 15 Yor oh i one dgeranrelt 1 oc Fish Werte Te} OD cormnifac