[env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard 12-22-2010

[Byron Leydecker]

Hoopa Tribe to get share of Trinity River power



John Driscoll/The Times-Standard

Five decades after the federal government dammed the Trinity River, the
Hoopa Valley Tribe will get some power from the project that diverts
billions of gallons of water to the Central Valley each year. 

Beginning in 2015, the tribe will get an allocation through the Western Area
Power Administration, a U.S. Department of Energy power marketing branch,
that should meet a substantial part of the tribe's power needs long into the
future. The tribe will get about 4,102 megawatt hours of electricity each
year -- about three times the amount of power used by homes and businesses
connected to the electrical grid currently. 

"We felt it was time to see the benefits of the water being diverted," Hoopa
Tribe Fisheries Department communications director Allie Hostler said. 

Just over half of the upper Trinity River's water is sent through three
powerhouses on its way to the Sacramento River. The Trinity River's
fisheries collapsed after the dam and diversion were in place in 1963. In
2000, a federal record of decision was signed that reduced the diversion. 

That decision will govern the diversion into the foreseeable future, Hostler
said, so the tribe applied to the power administration to procure some of
the electricity the Central Valley Project generates. Central Valley Project
contractors get power at wholesale rates, while about 2 percent of the power
is set aside for public utilities, tribes, universities and other entities
that meet certain requirements. 

The Hoopa Tribe will be the second-largest recipient of that power
allocation. The contract for the power will last until 2024, and can be
renewed. 

The tribe does not own its own power transmission lines and intends to
negotiate with the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. -- possibly in exchange for
excess power -- for delivery of power through existing lines, Hostler said.

 

Byron Leydecker, JcT

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 land

415 519 4810 mobile

bwl3 at comcast.net 

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org 

http://www.fotr.org

 

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