Talks scheduled over possible surrender of Ela Dam license

Northbrook Power Management will discuss the “potential surrender of license” of the Ela Dam on July 19, 2023, with FERC, according to a letter from Northbrook President Chuck Ahlrichs.

An accidental reservoir drawdown at the dam Oct. 3-4, 2021, caused a sediment release that “adversely affected water quality and aquatic habitat quality downstream of the dam,” according to a June 15 letter from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The dam on the Oconaluftee River is about half a mile upstream from the confluence with the Tuckasegee River. The dam’s formal name is the Bryson Hydroelectric Project.

In the June 15 letter, FERC stated that Northbrook “took sufficient action to remediate the effects of the sediment release in consultation with the resources agencies.”

A coalition led by Mainspring Conservation Trust, which is based in Franklin, N.C., has raised $8 million of the $10 million needed to purchase and remove the dam, the Smoky Mountain News reported in late May.

The Bryson Hydroelectric Project began power production in 1925, bringing electricity to nearby Bryson City, N.C.

The dam’s two turbines have a combined generating capacity of 980 kilowatts.

By Bob Brueckner