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Post by logie316 on Jul 10, 2007 14:56:36 GMT -5
There was a recent news article posted about the improved health of the Housatonic due to changes in the flow rates from the hydroelectric plants along the river. Specifically, switching from a hold-and-release to a more consistent, continual flow through the turbines.
How likely would it be to propose this for the Deerfield?
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Post by dw on Jul 10, 2007 20:24:09 GMT -5
I think everything was nailed down in stone for another 40 years or so when the FERC agreement was signed. Probably a pointless debate for decades.
Some key differences between the Housatonic and Deerfield are the nature of the outflows. The outflows on the Housatonic are warm.
On the Deerfield there are cool releases by fife brook, number 5 dam and Searsburg Dam. There are cold releases below Harriman and Somerset Dam. The heavy flows in the Housatonic had the effect of flushing vast sums of warm water down stream that would flush trout out of thermal refuges (cool pockets). Flushing cool or cold water at higher rates rates would seem beneficial as long as the increased flow was gradual and not sudden so as to wash fish and insects down stream before they could resituate.
In addition, under natural conditions, the Deerfield get very high and very low. The storage reservoir cool flows and even out flows. For example the flow in each reach is at as much as or more than the mean historic flows for each month. Mean historic flow is already much higher than what occurs during seasonal or historical extremes. A strict run of river flow (what flows in flows out) would lead to some seriously low water and there fore warm water.
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