Who is the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council or KRWC and why is Consumers choosing (TBD Alternate) as the convener of their Prosperity Group and what is the Prosperity Group going to do?
The Kalamazoo River Watershed Council has decided not to be Consumers Kalamazoo Watershed Convener. Consumers will be announcing an alternative entity shortly and this blog post will be updated accordingly with that information.
As Consumers considers the future of its 13 remaining hydroelectric plants, they previously determined they had extensive information about most of the factors in their review process but not the community and recreational factors. To help them fill in these gaps they hired Public Sector Consultants or PSC.
PSC, after consolidating their survey results amongst 3,700 people, participating in at least one mode of engagement, equated those results to only .01% of Consumers 1.8 M customers. Thus, PSC recommended in Finding Seven of their Community Report that engagement opportunities should be expanded to hear more voices and not with just property owners and people living closest to the river hydros. PSC is suggesting that “broader engagement include customers across the company’s service territory which would yield more varied perspectives, input, and information” and that “broader framework” will also result in a more complete assessment of current and future, conditions and outcomes. Thus, PSC recommended the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council or KRWC as an existing organization that could perform the role of a watershed convener but they have declined to accept this role. An alternative convener TBD will be announced shortly and this blog post will be updated accordingly.
The Kalamazoo River Watershed Group according to their website “plays an important role in many watershed-wide initiatives, with the goal of long-term protection, restoration, enjoyment and stewardship of the Kalamazoo River and its tributaries.” The group was initially created in 1993 as a Public Advisory Council (PAC) to assist and advise the MDEQ’s, Remedial Action Plan team with the development of the RAP, which was a plan to restore and protect the Kalamazoo River Area of Concern related to PCP contamination. The KRWC is governed by a Board of Directors, which meets monthly and includes members of diverse backgrounds with impressive professional credentials in water resources, several of whom contribute technical and scientific expertise to the council. The current Executive Director is Dr. Douglas McLaughlin who is also a member of the Kalamazoo River Superfund CAG or Community Advisory Group, which meets monthly and is open to any Lake Allegan resident who is interested in understanding the PCB clean up on the Kalamazoo River. Several Lake Allegan residents are currently participating in this advisory group, and both are familiar with Doug McLaughlin, and would agree, he is smart, trustworthy, and approachable.
Because various county organizations along the Kalamazoo Watershed will have representation in Consumers prosperity group, one of the first questions to ask is what is a watershed? A watershed is an area of land that drains rainwater and snow melt into one location such as a stream, lake, or wetland. Ground water is connected to the surface water network within a watershed. Both surface water and ground water supply our drinking water, agriculture irrigation, and manufacturing water resources. Various forms of pollution like PCB’s, runoff and erosion can interfere with the health of the watershed, thus it is important to protect the quality of our watershed and use the resources in a sustainable way. In a future blog, Friends of Lake Allegan will review some of these same issues for Lake Allegan.
The Kalamazoo Watershed is 2,020 sq miles and connects to the counties of Hillsdale, Jackson, Eaton, Calhoun, Barry, Kalamazoo, Kent, Ottawa, Van Buren and Allegan. County officials, various not for profits and representatives from Federally recognized tribes will be invited to present their priorities based upon Consumers decision to relicense or not to relicense. The group participants will be chosen by KRWC and a watershed county as far east as Hillsdale which is 105 miles from Allegan would not be invited to participate unless they had a level of expertise pertinent to the discussion, according to Josh Burgett.
What will this prosperity group be doing and how can we learn more about their discussions?
According to PSC’s Community Engagement “Recommendations” section prepared for Consumers Energy they are suggesting the following activities:
• Invite topic experts to educate the group
• Share information on new data and developments relevant to the river and the river hydros
• Develop a vision of what the area could be without the river hydros and impoundments
• Identify information gaps and conduct research
• Provide updates to local officials and serve as liaisons to community members
• Host one-day conferences for the public with sessions on key topics
• Identify state and federal funding sources for implementing
Along with describing the steps of a planned river hydro removal and river restoration process as well as present case studies of similar projects elsewhere and how local economies and communities transitioned.
• Consider using the narrative of free-flowing rivers and benefits of river hydro removal and river restoration.
• Support a visioning process with the communities that includes graphical illustrations of what the river landscape will look like after the river hydro is removed. These illustrations can provide comparisons with existing conditions with the river hydro in place. They can also aid in identifying new recreation, cultural, and business opportunities.
• Share content about how rivers function both with and without hydroelectric plants.
PSC did not include engagement activities in their recommendations related to a transfer of ownership since only a few of the 13 dam communities has sufficient homeownership on their lake to support a special assessment tax district to allow for public ownership of a dam. Lake Allegan is one of those dam communities. Josh Burgett, has assured Friends of Lake Allegan, that this prospective scenario and the priorities related to this vision will be included in the prosperity groups discussion activities for the Kalamazoo Watershed.
Allegan will have representation in the Prosperity Group through the Lake Association and an Allegan County Commissioner. Publicly posted notes on the priority discussions from the meetings will be on Consumers, Future of Hydro web page. Friends of Lake Allegan will re-summarize the KRWC notes and will repost on Friends of Lake Allegan’s web site. This information should also be available through the Lake Association. The primary objective for this Prosperity Group according to Josh Burgett is to provide him with community-based priorities for a relicensing and a non-relicensing scenario. According to Josh “in addition to providing us with data, it allows communities to make proactive plans regardless of Consumers decision regarding the hydro in their community”. In other words, be ready with a future plan either way depending on Consumers decision to relicense or not to relicense.
Over the next few years, regardless of the Prosperity Group’s recommendations to Consumers, Allegan should seek to maintain it’s position with desiring an ownership transfer. The lake community should proactively remind Consumers of their public pronouncements to preserve the impoundment and expect a continued show of support with transitioning Calkins Dam. The Allegan Lake community needs to gather public endorsements from organizations that are equally interested in preserving Lake Allegan and the Calkins Dam. Georgia Pacific and Great Lakes Fishery are pivotal allies and their public endorsements to preserve Lake Allegan are the key to our success which can also influence reluctant county commissioners to fully engage in this process. Once Consumers makes their relicensing decision there will be an opportunity to accelerate the ownership transition. According to Josh Burgett so long as the community can demonstrate a willingness to make a long-term funding commitment, Consumers can help us with bringing this desired state to a reality. Rather than allowing dam removal groups to gain an even larger momentum by waiting out the clock until 2040 to finalize Calkins ownership, Friends of Lake Allegan recommends an expedited approach with finalizing a transition of Calkins Dam ownership.
