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Company wants to modify dam at Little Pine into hydroelectric facility

From PennLive

WATERVILLE — An Alabama company wants to study the feasibility of modifying the dam in Little Pine State Park in northwestern Lycoming County into a hydroelectric facility.

Lock + TM Hydro Friends Fund XXII, part of Hydro Green Energy, has filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a permit which, if granted, would allow it to proceed with such a study.

Wayne Krouse, chief executive office of Lock + TM, said he expects a decision from FERC later this year. The public has 60 days from Aug. 29 to file comments with the agency.

The study would not only look at the feasibility of modifying the dam but determine if can be done economically, he said.

Preliminary plans show two turbine generating units with a capacity of 1.3 megawatts, a pad-mounted transformer along with 200-foot-long, 13-kilovolt transmission line between it and an existing distribution line.

The dam is one of about a dozen in Pennsylvania for which permits are being sought to do feasibility studies, Krouse said. None are in the Harrisburg area, he said.

“It might work, let’s go file a permit application,” he explained how the decision was made to proceed with certain dams after reviewing a list of reservoirs in the state.

“We like the state of Pennsylvania very much,” he said, pointing out the company has a 50-year license for a 5.25-megawatt project at the Braddock Locks and Dam on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh.

That project is in final design, with construction expected to begin next year, he said.

At this stage of the process with the Little Pine dam, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has not been contacted and no one from Lock + TM has visited the site, Krouse said.

Once a permit is issued the state will be asked to provide drawings of the dam and there will be visits, he said.

It would be premature to comment on the Pine Creek project “until we know what is being proposed,” DCNR spokesman Terry Brady said.

The permit sought by Lock + TM does not authorize it to perform any land-disturbing activities or approach the dam without the state’s approval.

This is not the first time the Little Pine dam has been looked at as a potential hydroelectric facility.

American Hydro Power Co. in the late 1980s determined such a conversion would impact upstream recreation and flood control capacity, DCNR says.

Lock + TM in 2016 obtained a permit to study the feasibility to turning the Hepburn Street dam on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River at Williamsport into a hydroelectric facility but did not pursue the project.

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