Hydro power plants Operation

A small hydroelectric power operation at the Youghiogheny River Dam in Confluence, Somerset County, resumed procedure Tuesday early morning, per week after it had been shut down and blamed for killing about 230 brown and rainbow trout presented in nursery pencils underneath the dam.

It had been at the least the third time the power plant features played a task into the loss of seafood into the Yough Cage Nursery, a co-operative trout rearing task of Chestnut Ridge Trout Unlimited therefore the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, which have operated in the foot of the dam considering that the belated 1990s.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the flooding control dam and bought the ability plant to briefly stop businesses, stated its initial research determined the fish died if the power plant’s liquid discharges became “supersaturated” with nitrogen.

But Gregory Brant, project operator for D/​R Hydro Co. associated with 12 megawatt power plant had because of the Youghiogheny Hydropower Authority, said its gauges revealed nitrogen levels were in safe range, and as an alternative attributed the kill to high water temperatures that “stressed the seafood, ”and poor water blood supply because of the algae-caked rearing pens.

“We have actually a difference of opinion in regards to the readings from the liquid quality gauges, ” Mr. Brant said. “This has occurred at other times in similar conditions in belated summer, and you will find procedures positioned to reduce the risk. But truthfully, there shouldn’t be fish in those pens currently of the year. That Simply invites catastrophe.”

The high nitrogen concentrations usually occur in belated summer whenever the hydroelectric power plant attracts water reduced in air from the base of dam’s lake. Releasing that liquid below the dam would eliminate fish, so that the power-plant must add air before it is released in to the river underneath the dam.

It will that by either injecting liquid air to the liquid — a pricey process — or making use of blowers. However the atmospheric air-blown to the liquid contains about 20 per cent air and 80 percent nitrogen, Mr. Brant stated. He stated the power plant ended up being making use of a mixture of fluid air and blowers once the Corps ordered it to shut down last week.

“We didn’t think any such thing ended up being wrong until we got the order through the Corps, ” Mr. Brant said. “We’ve been in communication utilizing the Corps and will want to sit-down and work-out processes on how best to deal with this example as time goes on.”

Dale Kotowski, president of Chestnut Ridge Trout Unlimited, stated the nursery gets about 10, 000 seafood a-year from the state, increases them and shares all of them within the Youghiogheny lake also lakes and channels in your community.

After the seafood destroy the other day, chapter users emptied the nursery cages, removing about 600 live trout and releasing all of them in the lake.

“The nursery features whilst the canary in the coal mine to inform us when things are getting wrong with liquid high quality in river, ” Mr. Kotowski stated. “This occurred because gauges keeping track of water quality didn’t catch the large [nitrogen] gas amounts rapidly sufficient.”

Investigations associated with the incident by both condition Fish and Boat Commission in addition to Army Corps of Engineers are continuing. A meeting to discuss findings of investigations and solutions to the nitrogen issue is planned for a few weeks.

Youghiogheny Hydroelectric Authority keeps a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license for the hydroelectric plant, managed by D/​R Hydro Co. since 1989. The plant has the capacity to generate as much as 12 megawatts of electricity hourly, adequate to program roughly 8, 000 homes for per year.