Portland General Electric Company (PGE) owns and operates a series of hydropower developments on the Clackamas River and its tributaries in north central Oregon. The Clackamas is a tributary to the Willamette River, which empties into the Columbia River. PGE’s power facilities include the River Mill, North Fork, and Faraday hydroelectric developments on the Clackamas, along with the Oak Grove development on the Oak Grove Fork of the Clackamas. Seasonal storage for these power plants is provided by Timothy Lake Dam. Anadromous fish migrate from the Pacific Ocean up the Clackamas River to spawn, and pass through three dams via existing fish ladders. A downstream fish bypass system for outmigrating juveniles is located at the uppermost of the three mainstem dams (North Fork) designed to bypass fish around all three developments and place them back into the river below the lowermost dam (River Mill).

The Clackamas River Project licenses expire in 2006. PGE is currently involved in a collaborative relicensing process. Part of this process includes a review of the existing project operation, potential for operational improvements, and physical improvements to the project’s facilities. EES Consulting is assisting in management of the operational modeling effort, including presentation of results at agency and PGE staff meetings, developing operating scenarios, establishing formats for model presentations, and review of operating procedures and priorities with PGE project staff.

Services Provided

• Participated in the project operations workgroup component of the collaborative relicensing effort, providing operations modeling results to agency and NGO representatives.
• Reviewed project operating policies and procedures with engineering and project operations staff.  
• Developed operational scenarios for evaluation of operational alternatives.
• Managed editing and scenario evaluation using HEC-5 operations model.