03-25-2008, 10:45 PM
Didn't know who to reply to so just went with the top.
My quick 2 cents. Near my home town in Colorado, Leadville, we have one of these pump-back storage systems. The main lake is the Mt. Elbert afterbay, Twin Lakes, and water is pumped up to Forebay during low demand times and released back down through the turbines during high demand times. Yes, obviously its net power ouput is lower than input. And yes I understand that the same conditions might not exist at Bear Lake.
But Twin lakes hold some giant Macks and is ice fished throughout the winter and even now. I guess the level changes aren't drastic enough to break up the ice (also supplemental water comes from another Reservoir, Turquoise Lake which could explain this). But Forebay (the storage reservoir) is unsafe to ice fish, and even boat sometimes, as it's levels can change drastically. But all lakes involved are not murky by any means and are great fisheries. If you can be at Forebay when the 'bubbler' is running, pumping water up to Forebay, the fishing is excellent! So I don't see any negative impacts on these fisheries from this system, but rather a positive effect.
Just another side of the coin. Once again situations may be entirely different at Bear Lake and outcomes completely different. But for the situation that it is applied to at Twin Lakes and Forebay, it works there (as far as I can see)...
Here's a link to some info on this system (and yes, some of my nomenclature came from this website[sly]).
[url "http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/sites/mtelbert/mtelbert.html"]http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/sites/mtelbert/mtelbert.html[/url]
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My quick 2 cents. Near my home town in Colorado, Leadville, we have one of these pump-back storage systems. The main lake is the Mt. Elbert afterbay, Twin Lakes, and water is pumped up to Forebay during low demand times and released back down through the turbines during high demand times. Yes, obviously its net power ouput is lower than input. And yes I understand that the same conditions might not exist at Bear Lake.
But Twin lakes hold some giant Macks and is ice fished throughout the winter and even now. I guess the level changes aren't drastic enough to break up the ice (also supplemental water comes from another Reservoir, Turquoise Lake which could explain this). But Forebay (the storage reservoir) is unsafe to ice fish, and even boat sometimes, as it's levels can change drastically. But all lakes involved are not murky by any means and are great fisheries. If you can be at Forebay when the 'bubbler' is running, pumping water up to Forebay, the fishing is excellent! So I don't see any negative impacts on these fisheries from this system, but rather a positive effect.
Just another side of the coin. Once again situations may be entirely different at Bear Lake and outcomes completely different. But for the situation that it is applied to at Twin Lakes and Forebay, it works there (as far as I can see)...
Here's a link to some info on this system (and yes, some of my nomenclature came from this website[sly]).
[url "http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/sites/mtelbert/mtelbert.html"]http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/sites/mtelbert/mtelbert.html[/url]
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