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Rogue has been a power source for decades By Melissa Martin PROSPECT � There�s a power source that boils out of the ground near Crater Lake. Free, clean and abundant, this "fuel" has been used to light the Rogue Valley for nearly a century. The Rogue River has been a source of power generation since the earliest hydro project at Gold Ray Dam in 1904 and later through the first power plant built in 1911 on the North Fork near Prospect. The single project that started producing 4.5 megawatts of power � enough to meet electricity demands in Northern California and Southern Oregon at the time � grew to four projects capable of generating 53.5 megawatts. Today, the Rogue Valley�s electricity demands are about 350 megawatts daily. "Hydropower projects used to meet the base loads of the area," said Dave Kvamme of Pacific Power in Portland. "They were the broad shoulders of supplying this region with electricity. But now they play a more specialized role." Hydropower provides peak energy. The four PacifiCorp projects at Prospect run at full steam in the winter when consumers heat their homes, turn on computers, operate appliances and more. "Hydro is low cost, and if we can use our smaller hydro projects to meet that peak demand, it saves customers money," Kvamme says. At Prospect, five people keep the generators running, a job that required 12 people before the plant became networked with computers at Merwin Dam on the Lewis River, PacifiCorp�s largest hydro project. Besides maintaining the generators, the Prospect operators maintain 10 miles of redwood flumes, 30 miles of fence to keep animals and people out of the water ways, nine trash racks that collect tree limbs and other debris that would damage the power plants and the steep roads leading down a canyon to the power houses, says plant operator Lance Bates. Hydropower has been a mainstay of the Pacific Northwest since current was first turned on in Astoria Christmas Eve 1885. "Hydro is inexpensive and reliable power," Bates said. "You�re not buying a fuel. As long as it keeps raining and the river keeps flowing, we�ll have water power." Prospect�s isn�t the only hydropower plant on the Rogue River. At Lost Creek Dam near Trail, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates a 49-megawatt power plant built in 1977. Power production is usually minimal this time of the year to maintain lake levels for fish, said Steve Watkins, supervisory mechanical engineer at Lost Creek Lake. But this past week, the power plant has been running at maximum production because of electricity shortages in the Northwest, Watkins said. "In the last five years, I don�t think we�ve ever been requested to go to full generation without an adequate lake supply," Watkins said. Lost Creek is one of 29 federally owned hydro projects in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The Bonneville Power Administration, which sells the power, last year earned about $5 million from electricity generated at Lost Creek. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.