FEMA Briefs

Cities Along the Missouri River Struggle with Low Water Levels Because of extreme low temperatures and heavy ice flows, combined with last summer's drought, water levels on the Missouri River are extremely low from Sioux City south. Kansas City, KS is reporting a power shortage due to the inability to pump water into power plant cooling systems. The city is purchasing electrical power from the Midwest grid and will continue to do so until at least December 29. The city's water supply is not at risk, in part because of improvements made to the water treatment plant under Public Assistance work conducted under FEMA-1000-DR.

The U.S. Department of Energy reports that there is adequate power on the grid to supply Kansas City's needs. The situation in the Midwest is being monitored by the agency, however.

Because of the low flows on the river, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has increased water flow from the Gavins Point Dam. This water will take six to seven days to reach Kansas City.

FEMA continues to monitor the situation. No request for additional Federal assistance is anticipated at this time. (Region VII)

Updated: December 22, 2000

http://www.fema.gov/emanagers/nat122200.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 22, 2000

Answers

This appears to be quite serious. If they can't pump water into the power plant cooling systems (I assume it's a nuclear plant) wouldn't there be risk to the core? I wonder if there's any reports to the NRC about this (as an "event")? I'll look and post if I find any.

-- slzattas (slzattas@erols.com), December 23, 2000.

BPU forced to buy power on open market

By STEVE NICELY - The Kansas City Star Date: 12/21/00 22:35

No, the lights won't go out in Kansas City, Kan.

Elevators won't trap you between floors this weekend. And electric heaters will keep glowing.

Television and radio newscasts Wednesday night and Thursday morning stirred alarm among electric power customers of the Kansas City, Kan., Board of Public Utilities.

Was it true that the BPU, which serves most of Wyandotte County, only had enough power for one day?

BPU customer Ann Carrell volunteered this account of a news promotion she witnessed on KSHB-TV, Channel 41: "Are you going to be left in freezing cold in the dark of night? Tune in at 10." The KSHB news director did not return calls seeking comment.

Thursday morning the utility was inundated with calls from consumers concerned about a brown-out or black-out, BPU General Manager Leon Daggett said Thursday.

He called a news conference for Thursday afternoon to address the matter. The area's four major TV stations covered it.

It was reported previously that low water on the Missouri River had forced the BPU to shut down its Nearman Creek Power Plant Dec. 14.

That required the utility to buy two-thirds of its normal system requirements from other producers, but by Wednesday it had not received commitments beyond Friday.

The sellers apparently wanted to wait to see if the price would might go up, Daggett said Thursday.

"We were not getting any prices," he said. "They (reporters) took it to mean there wasn't any power available."

Plenty of power is available, Daggett said. It is just a question of how much the BPU must pay for it.

At the news conference, Daggett announced agreements to buy power through the end of January for an average price of about $55 per kilowatt hour, which is $44 more than the production cost at the Nearman Creek plant.

That difference builds up fast, said Nancy Zielke, the utility's chief financial officer, who also attended the news conference. In an interview, she estimated the extra cost at $6 million this month and more than $12 million in January.

Without relief, Daggett said, it was probable the BPU would have to enact its first rate increase in five years. As a unit of the Wyandotte County Unified Government, the nonprofit utility operates on a slim margin.

If the river should rise enough to restart the plant, the BPU then would sell the unused portion of its emergency power purchase.

The river stage is about 18 inches too low to operate the coal-fired plant, officials said. River water is required for making steam and for cooling.

The BPU and other utilities look to the Army Corps of Engineers to release enough water from upstream dams on the Missouri River to keep power plants operating. A plant south of Sioux City, Iowa, was shut for a few days, but now is back in operation, officials said.

"We need water," Daggett said. "We believe the water is there, and the corps only has to release it."

Other utilities operating power plants on the Missouri River didn't report problems with water levels.

Dave Simon, spokesman for Nebraska Public Power District, which owns and operates the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownsville, Neb., said water levels haven't been low enough to cause any disruptions.

A spokesman for UtiliCorp United, which owns Missouri Public Service and operates a generating plant in Sibley, said he had not heard of any problems with low river levels.

The corps has its own problems to consider.

The impact of a continuing drought makes it wise to conserve water, said Larry Murphy, leader of the corp's reservoir regulation team in Omaha, Neb., said Thursday. Ice bridges also have restricted the river's flow.

"Our system storage is real low," Murphy said. "We only had 66 percent of our normal runoff this year."

Forecasts are not rosy, either. He said that mountain snow packs that feed the Missouri River when they melt in the spring are 73 percent of normal.

The corps increased the release of water at its Gavins Point Dam in northeast Nebraska to 16,000 cubic feet per second, but that still is below its usual rate of 18,000 cubic feet per second at this time of year. Further, the corps plans to reduce the flow to about 13,000 cubic feet per second when ice conditions have stabilized.

Murphy wondered whether something in the river bed near Nearman Creek could be causing BPU's problem. Disturbances such as dredging sand from the river could degrade the river bottom, he said.

A BPU official said that possibility is being studied, and added that the utility also is considering installing submergible pumps that would enable the plant to operate at 50 percent of normal capacity.

The Star's Michael Mansur contributed to this report.

http://www.kansascity.com/bin/redirect.pl? http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/local.pat,local/377500ae.c21,.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 23, 2000.