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MARQUETTE —  The Marquette Board of Light and Power voted unanimously Tuesday night to rebuild the dam at Tourist Park.


Tom Humphrey, chair of the five-member BLP, said the next step is for the Marquette City Commission to vote to waive payments in lieu of taxes — about $80,000 annually — which would be owed the city if the dam were rebuilt.


“I’m pleased. It’s obvious that a good number of citizens want the Tourist Park dam restored to its original state,” Humphrey said. “As long as we can justify it from a power production standpoint I’m happy to approve going forward.”


Humphrey said he realized not everyone would be happy with the dam being rebuilt.


“From a recreational standpoint we could debate this endlessly and not make everyone happy,” he said. “From the BLP’s standpoint it has to be, above all other things, a power production decision. Is this is a justifiable investment of repair funds? If we can do that, the recreational aspects are secondary.”


In order for the dam to be economically feasible, the dam will not bypass any water — meaning a dry falls.


“That’s essential too,” Humphrey said. “We need every drop of water to make this thing economical, for it to justify it, to pay for itself. We need the full flow of water.”


BLP Executive Director Kirby Juntila said the BLP already has a basic design for the dam, created by the engineering firm Gannett Fleming several years ago. Juntila said the designs will have to be re-engineered to account for the lack of a water bypass.


The project will cost about $4.8 million, Juntila said, and will likely be paid for with a 20-year bond.


“The process will take about six months for us to further develop the engineering and the permitting and design,” Juntila said.


The BLP would likely return to the city commission with bonding and financing details in the summer of 2008, Juntila said, with construction likely beginning in the fall and completion in the spring of 2009.


The BLP’s decision follows a Dec. 3 joint meeting of the BLP and the city commission where city commissioners discussed waiving payment in lieu of taxes — owed the city whenever the BLP makes capital improvements.


BLP officials said if the dam was constructed as it was previously, with no water bypassed for a waterfall, the dam would eventually generate $57,971 in profits over 30 years.


If the dam was built to bypass 20 cubic feet of water per second, maintaining a waterfall, the BLP would lose $744,268 over the first 30-year period. In addition, the BLP would have to reopen its license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a process that could cost $500,000 to $1 million, Juntila said.


The dam was destroyed during the Dead River flood in May 2003. The flood started at the Silver Lake Basin when a fuse plug — an emergency water-release system installed the previous year — failed on the dam after several days of heavy rainfall. The breach released 8 billion gallons of water into the Dead River and washed away the basin at the city-owned Tourist Park.


Mayor Tom Tourville said having a lake at Tourist Park was worth waiving the PILT money.


“We at the city are asking the BLP to spend significant money to rebuild the dam for, what we view, as a benefit to the city to restore our recreation area,” Tourville said. “To turn around and tax them on that is selfish.”

 

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