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Hydro Plant Proposed for New Mills Dam in Gardiner

May 24, 2010 - GARDINER -- Gardiner Water District superintendent Paul Gray said he had to scratch his head after hearing someone wants to build a hydroelectric power plant at the New Mills Dam.

New Mills Dam is owned by Gardiner, Litchfield and Richmond; the pump station and equipment belong to the water district.

Gray said three weeks ago he was approached by Hoon Won, of Woolwich, who said he had filed an application with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking a permit to study the feasibility of a hydroelectric project at the Cobbosseecontee Stream dam.

According to FERC, Won submitted the application April 9 on behalf of a company called Osprey l LLC. Won’s phone number and address on the application is 275 River Road in Woolwich, which is the same as Reed & Reed Inc., a general contracting company.

“When I heard about it, it sounded like they wanted to put a power plant in the building that belongs to the water district,” Gray said last week. “It kind of floored me. They want to develop the dam and put turbines back in the pump station. I had to scratch my head over that one, because we own it.”

Jeff Kobrock, a water district trustee, also said he was clueless about the proposal.

Gray said the pump station is a beautiful old building that is in disrepair. He said a year or so ago, the water district looked into a hydroelectric project but decided it was too pricey.

“I personally would love to see something done with it,” he said. “We’ll entertain any offer, but it needs quite a bit of extensive care so it won’t fall over in the next 10 years. They will have to make some type of proposal to the board of trustees, and we’ll act on it from there.”

John Ramer of FERC said his agency accepted Won’s application and, for the next 60 days, is soliciting comments, motions to intervene and competing applications under the “e-Filing” link at the commission’s website, http://www.ferc.gov/filing-comments.asp.

“We give you 60 days to provide comments, make a motion to intervene, which means you want to be party to the proceedings and get on our service list to make sure you get all the correspondence regarding the project,” Ramer said. “And if you want to file a competing application, you have this period of time to do so.”

He said comments will be reviewed, then the commission will determine whether to allow the feasibility study.

“They have up to three years to study it,” he said.

Won did not return calls for comment. But the CEO of Reed & Reed, Jackson Parker, said Osprey is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phoenix Renewable Energy, which is an affiliate of his company.

“It’s a partnership in which I am one of the partners, along with Won,” Parker said. “I just happen to wear more than one hat. We applied for a preliminary permit that allows us to see if there’s an opportunity to do some upgrades and increase the capacity of the facility that make sense. This is just a standard procedure with FERC.”

The proposed project would consist of “an existing 12-foot-high, 91-foot-wide concrete dam with a 58-foot-wide spillway; an existing 140-acre reservoir; an existing powerhouse penstock and outlet structure; new turbine generator units with a total installed capacity of 250 kilowatts; a new transmission line connecting to an existing Central Maine Power distribution line located 3,000 feet downstream of the dam; and appurtenant facilities.”

The project could produce an estimated average annual generation of about 1,300 megawatt-hours that could be sold directly to a local utility.

Ramer said information about the permitting process can be found on FERC’s website. More information about this project can be viewed at the eLibrary link of the commission’s website. Enter the docket number, P-13709, in the docket number field to access documentation.

Gardiner Mayor Andrew MacLean said there are a number of small electric-generating sites around the state.

“I would agree with Paul,” MacLean said. “We would be interested with exploring any opportunity for the city to make some money off its assets and offer energy at a lower cost.”

Kruger Energy operates a hydroelectric dam downstream from New Mills Dam. Kruger Energy acquired the downstream dam — along with other hydroelectric facilities of Ridgewood Maine Hydro Partners LP — in November 2009.

Won also is the contact for another application he filed with FERC on April 15 to study the feasibility of a hydroelectric project on the Morgan Dam, on the Sebasticook River in Hartland. That project is estimated to produce an estimated average annual generation of about 5,000 megawatt-hours.


By Mechel Cooper, May 24, 2010, Kennebec Journal

Lakes: Cobbosseecontee Lake
Regions: Belgrade


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