After 25 years, millions of dollars and tons of concrete, the Auburn Dam sits unfinished.
The dam on the North Fork of the American River in the heart of California's Gold Country is more than just a pile of concrete remains —- it symbolizes a decades-old battle that pits environmentalists against developers, utilities and politicians.
Now, California's power crunch has renewed controversy over the fate of a project that some say would ease the state's energy crisis and others say will wreak havoc on the environment.
"It has definitely reignited due to the energy crisis," said Maureen Rose, spokeswoman for Friends of the River.
The debate centers on development for hydropower -- a clean, renewable energy resource that is less expensive than geothermal, biomass, wind or solar energy.
But while hydropower doesn't pollute the air, it's not a green energy source, environmentalists say. Hydroelectric dams prevent fish from migrating, alter water temperatures and "strip-mine" river systems.
California's energy crisis has spawned two new Senate bills, 316 and 45x, to authorize the completion of the Auburn Dam, which legislators say could provide the state with up to 1,000 new megawatts of power.
"Public sentiment for building an Auburn Dam is dramatically up, and for good reason," California State Senator Rico Oller (R-San Andreas) said in a statement. "If the Auburn Dam had been built, we would be in much better shape during this energy crisis. We need to build the Auburn Dam now."
But others say that the energy crisis won't quell the age-old debate over the dam's construction.
"It's like a dinosaur that won't die," said Nathan Rangel, president of California Outdoors, a trade association of river guides and outfitters. "The Auburn Dam is a very inefficient project, and the reason it hasn't been built is economics. I don't care how bad it gets in terms of the energy crisis, it's never going to make financial sense."
The revival of interest in the Auburn Dam is just one example of the flood of legislation and lobbying efforts that have been recently introduced to promote new hydroelectric capacity.
The power crunch "has certainly brought more attention to issues of energy," said David Tuft, spokesman for the National Hydropower Association.
When it comes to hydropower, there's not a whole lot of talk about creating new dams. The nation's best sites for constructing new hydropower dams were all built decades ago, and there hasn't been a major new facility built since 1970.
With more than 1,400 dams in California, the remaining sites tend to be the least accessible and the most costly to develop, Rose said.
Just 10 percent of the nation's electricity comes from hydroelectric dams, about half of that from non-federal utilities. Those utilities are required to take steps recommended by resource agencies to protect the river environment when applying for 50-year licenses from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
In the next decade, the licenses for more than 400 dams on 130 rivers will expire, representing only 2 percent of the nation's energy mix.
Instead of building new dams, most efforts have concentrated on squeezing additional power out of existing hydroelectric plants.
The hydropower industry insists there's still a lot of energy to reap. California could generate an additional 2,500 megawatts of power from existing hydroelectric dams, Tuft said.
Hydropower provides more energy than petroleum and far more than the other renewable energy technologies combined, according to Michael Sale, researcher for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The hydropower industry says that the current licensing process is a drag for utilities, and power is lost as utilities get mired in regulatory red tape. They hope that President Bush's energy plan will restore the balance between energy needs and the environment.
"Bush's plan recognizes that there is a fundamental problem with the licensing process," Tuft said. "We expect we'll be able to clean up (the licensing process) so we can meet both the needs of the energy consumer and the environment."
FERC also recently issued a report asking Congress for new authority to streamline the licensing process.
But environmentalists say that the new push to maximize power will only cause more damage. They fear that Bush's plan and several bills recently introduced to Congress will increase hydroelectric generation by relieving utilities of their environmental regulations.
"It concerns us a lot that the administration is calling for reform of the licensing process," said Eric Eckl, spokesman for American Rivers, a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring rivers nationwide.
"The utility industry has used the power crunch to seek relief from environmental-regulation obligations," Eckl said. "(Licensing reform) won't generate a great deal of additional power, but it will have profound environmental consequences."
Large projects such as the Auburn Dam could cost billions and take more than a decade to construct. Smaller projects often divert as much as 90 percent of a river's flow to generate electricity, potentially causing long-term damage to fish, wildlife, agriculture and water quality.
Nearly 67 percent of California's native fish species are now considered to be extinct, endangered or in decline, in part due the extensive system of hydroelectric and other dams constructed over the past century, according to Friends of the River.
Utilities are working more closely together to generate power to both meet needs and maximize use for non-power users. The power crunch is taxing all those who use the river, including kayakers and whitewater rafters.
"We're having to be a lot more flexible in terms of which stretch of the river we're running and the times we're running trips," Rangel said. "We're following the water."
Meanwhile, researchers at the Department of Energy are exploring advanced hydro turbine technology that may minimize fish injuries and changes in water quality.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been evaluating these problems for more than a decade and is helping DOE start up a new technology development program to make hydropower more environmentally friendly.
While environmentalists agree that hydropower is part of the nation's energy plan, they urge that regulations must be protected.
American Rivers encourages dams to seek certification from the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes environmentally responsible, "low impact" hydropower.
"We're not opposed to all hydropower," Rose said. "But we need to ensure that environmental laws are upheld."
