PUD declares emergency for dam repairs

By Christine Pratt
Wenatchee World

WENATCHEE — The Chelan County PUD’s top-priority repair has the powerhouse floor of Rocky Reach Dam looking something like a highly specialized yard sale.

Turbine blades, bronze bushings the size of ottomans, boxes filled with jumbo-sized nuts and bolts and other, far larger dam components with names that make sense only to engineers and hydromechanics are spread out for inspection.

Off to the side, a stout, pipe-like stainless steel rod some 30 inches in diameter and 12 feet long lies on its side displaying a hairline crack that has halted four of the dam’s 11 generators, cut the PUD’s generating capacity by a quarter, and set in motion an all-hands-on-deck effort to get the units spinning again.

“This is the most significant equipment problem we’ve seen,” Dan Garrison, the PUD’s hydro operation director, said Thursday from the powerhouse floor. Read more