FERC on Lanai, Maui & Kauai

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (taylork021@hawaii.rr.com)
SUBHEAD: Spate of FERC hydro project permit applications by U.S. mainlanders are causing a stir.

By Sophie Cocke on 3 June 2011 for pacific Business News -

(http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/blog/2011/06/spate-of-hydro-projects-causing-a-stir.html#ixzz1OMoDjnMf)


Image above: View looking south-west of Maliko Gulch on Maui. Site of a FERC permit application. From GoogleEarth.

There hasn’t been much talk about hydropower as the state works to transition away from oil to locally produced, renewable sources of energy. But a recent spate of proposed hydro projects have, for better or worse, been causing quite a stir. And in large part it’s because Mainland companies have been filing applications for preliminary permits for hydro projects with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Federal oversight of Hawaii’s waterways was fought vigorously by the state two decades ago, with mixed results.

But in the end, three proposed projects on Kauai didn’t move forward. The pushback was centered in large part over concern that federal regulators didn’t have the specialized knowledge of local waterways and ecosystems to make decisions such as how much water can be diverted from a stream or river to turn a turbine without having harmful environmental impacts. On Kauai, where executives of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative are hoping to make small hydro projects a cornerstone of the island’s transition to renewables, this issue has presented a stumbling block.

A company called Free Flow Energy, based in Boston, filed six permits with the federal agency to develop hydro projects on Kauai, which the utility has now assumed control of, and is working in conjunction with the company to develop. David Bissell, CEO of the KIUC, has made strong arguments for why these projects are a good source of energy for the island, providing residents with low-cost, stable rates for years to come. And he has expressed a commitment to ensuring that they are carried out in ways that don’t harm the fragile waterways. But the strategy of going through FERC to develop the projects has not proven a smooth one, with some members of the community, and now state agencies, sounding alarm bells.

But the more startling hydro projects have been ones proposed for Maui and Lanai. Not only are they huge in scale, the Mainland developers who filed the applications through FERC don’t seem to have much knowledge of the local landscape — topographical or political. Idaho resident Matthew Shapiro filed an application for a 57-acre pumped storage hydro project on Lanai that would ideally work in tandem with the Big Wind project. The technology of the proposed project is in and of itself intriguing. With the benefit of a 1,700-foot drop, seawater would be pumped upward and then released back down to drive a turbine to generate electricity.

There’s only one other project like it in the world — a 30 megawatt plant in Okinawa, according to Shapiro. The project on Lanai would be 10-times the size, turn the wind energy into a reliable source of electricity and the cost to ratepayers would be marginal, according to his plan. But it hasn’t gotten much traction. Not from Castle & Cooke, which has publicly said that they have no relationship with his company, and not from Hawaiian Electric Co., whose officials Shapiro said weren’t returning his calls. He described the lack of response as “puzzling.”

Part of the problem could be that Shapiro, as he told PBN, had never been to Lanai, or Hawaii, and never consulted with local officials before filing the application, which is still pending. While he described the project to PBN as “quite small,” for local residents it doesn’t seem so modest. Lanai resident Robin Kaye told PBN that the project would encompass “a very, very large area in a very accessible part of the island — right in the middle of a hunting ground.” “It’s a huge project, and it came out of the blue,” said Kaye. “We were as stunned as everyone else.”

 On Maui, two proposed projects by the same developer — one which would dam up the Maliko Gulch on the North Shore and a second on the west side near Lahaina, aren’t going over so well, either. As on Lanai, residents and local officials found out about the projects when legal notices were filed in newspapers. Doug McLeod, Maui’s energy commissioner, told PBN that the project on Maliko Gulch was “the single worst idea we have seen in a long time” and that “we’d like to see it die an early death.”

Rob Parsons, executive assistant to Maui‘s mayor, Alan Arakawa, said the project on the west side, which proposes to use wastewater, could potentially be a very good idea. But he said “it’s just perplexing that these things would go forward without any communication with anyone locally. A few phone calls could have helped smooth things out,” he added.

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