[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 16, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4204-S4205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. MURKOWSKI:
  S. 1583. A bill to authorize the expansion of an existing 
hydroelectric project; to the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation 
that will speed the next phase of a renewable energy project in my home 
State of Alaska, that Congress effectively authorized 35 years ago.
  Back in 1980, Congress in Section 1325 of the Alaska National 
Interest Lands Conservation Act, noted that the Kodiak Electric 
Association Inc., KEA, then wished to build a lake-tap hydroelectric 
project by taking water from Terror Lake, a high alpine lake, whiph was 
placed just inside the boundary line of Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge 
by the act. At the time KEA had wanted to build a 20 megawatt 
hydroelectric project inside the refuge to power the namesake community 
on Kodiak Island. Under the law, the Secretary of the Interior was to 
approve the project and its expansion on a ``case-by-case'' basis--the 
law simply saying that nothing in the 1980 Act ``shall be construed as 
necessarily prohibiting or mandating the construction'' of the project. 
The Secretary the next year approved the power project, which started 
generation in the mid 1980's. A third 10-megawatt turbine since was 
added to the project in 2012-13.
  Kodiak Electric Association, a rural electric cooperative, is a 
leader in Alaska in promoting renewable energy. In 2014, 99.7 percent 
of its total electricity came from hydroelectric generation and from a 
Pillar Mountain wind turbine farm--the first community in Alaska to be 
nearly 100 percent supplied by renewable energy sources. But that 
designation will disappear if the next phase of the originally planned 
Terror Lake project is not constructed, since the utility will need to

[[Page S4205]]

resume burning more diesel fuel to produce power if additional 
hydroelectric generation from the lake is not permitted. That will 
result in the burning of 2 million gallons of diesel fuel--in a typical 
year given current electricity load forecasts--that will emit 26,000 
tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
  The new expansion involves diverting five small streams located on 
Alaska State lands in the adjacent Upper Hidden Basin--streams 
branching off the East and West Upper Hidden Creeks--and allowing the 
water to flow into Terror Lake through an underground tunnel that will 
be drilled through the ridge line marking the boundary between State 
and refuge lands. The project, which will impact about 13 acres of 
refuge lands, 3 acres being made up by the tunnel itself, will have a 
single visible impact, some grading for a construction laydown area on 
the rocky slopes above the upper end of the lake, and the ``natural'' 
waterfall that will result from water entering the lake from the 
tunnel. The entire extent of the project involves drilling a 1.22 mile-
long tunnel, about 2,150 feet by current estimates being on refuge 
lands, plus the diversion structure on the State's creeks, a water 
pipeline to carry water from the East Creek over to the main diversion 
structure located on the West Creek, and a related access road.
  The project should have no impact on the environment or wildlife, 
since the amount of water being diverted from the 4 square mile basin 
is so slight as to have no impact on fisheries at the mouth of the 
Kizhuyak River on the east side of Kodiak Island at Ugak Bay, into 
which the Hidden Basin Creeks flow. The project should not affect the 
wildlife along the shore of the steep, rocky lake. The project will not 
involve adding turbines or equipment to the existing Terror Lake 
powerhouse, as the project will not increase the maximum amount of 
megawatt production, but simply increase the annual total production of 
electricity from the power project. Terror Lake in 2014, a normal water 
year, produced 134 gigawatt-hours of electricity. By the addition it 
should produce about 30 additional gigawatt-hours annually, about a 25 
percent increase.
  The project, besides allowing KEA to utilize clean, renewable energy, 
should also enhance the utility's innovative wind-hydro integration 
system and further its micro-grid energy storage technology.
  While this project should be able to proceed by seeking 
administrative approvals either because of its ANILCA inclusion or 
because of Title 11 of ANILCA, which governs future rights-of-way 
requests, I am introducing legislation seeking Congressional approval 
to speed up the start of construction on the power project. Without 
Congressional approval, the utility will need to fund two environmental 
impact statements, EIS's, instead of one, covering the exact same 
issues, delaying the start of construction by years. With congressional 
approval, the project will still face the delay of the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission conducting a single EIS as part of its hydro 
licensing amendment process. The project still will be subject to any 
conditions to protect fisheries or wildlife placed on the project by 
the USF&WS under Section 4(e) of the Federal Power Act. But it will 
have to clear only one such EIS process, sparing rate payers on Kodiak 
Island a doubling of the permitting expense.
  This authorization will simply allow another phase of the Terror Lake 
project to be constructed, as it was envisioned nearly 40 years ago. In 
the 1978 feasibility plan, two years before passage of the Alaska 
National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Hidden Basin Creek 
diversion was clearly outlined. ``This scheme is the most economical 
means of increasing the output of the development . . . and it can be 
built whenever the growth in power demand in Kodiak justifies it. 
Therefore, the scheme is included in the present report as a 
recommended future development,'' said the Terror Lake hydro report in 
December 1978.
  The project will permit additional clean, renewable energy to be 
generated for the inhabitants of Kodiak Island, but without any 
environmental or negative fishery or wildlife consequences. This bill, 
if approved by Congress this year, will produce that power more quickly 
and at less cost than will be involved should a lengthy, multiple 
administrative review take place. It is unfortunate, but in the past 35 
years since passage of the Alaska lands act, no entity has ever 
completed the lengthy process and received a right-of-way permit under 
the bureaucratic process set up by Title 11 of ANILCA. I hope that this 
project will not have to attempt to be the first to actually navigate 
the Title 11 right-of-way process in order to proceed.
  I hope Congress will quickly approve this authorization so that more 
renewable electricity can flow to the citizens of Kodiak in the near 
future.
                                 ______