By Mike W. Ray of the Southwest Ledger
Literally hundreds of Oklahomans and north Texans have told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that they oppose the hydroelectric power plant proposed to be built on the Kiamichi River in Pushmataha County approximately five miles south of Talihina, near Albion.
Nevertheless, representatives of two labor unions have openly expressed an interest in, and outright support for, the $3.1 billion Southeast Oklahoma Power Corporation (SEOPC) plan.
Civil engineer Fred Brown, who is employed by SEOPC, said the payroll during construction of the proposed hydro plant “would be in the thousands,” and after construction and during operation of the facility “it’d be in the hundreds.”
The Central South Carpenters Regional Council, based in Metairie, La., “strongly supports the advancement” of the SEOPC project, FERC was informed by Kavin E. Griffin, CSCRC executive secretary-treasurer and chief executive officer.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America has members in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, the letter indicates. The UBCJA has 113 members “in Pushmataha County and in the surrounding area” who are carpenters and millwrights that “specialize in hydroelectricity and turbines for power generation,” said John West II.
Griffin said his union represents “nearly 11,000 skilled tradespeople who work in the immediate vicinity and broader regional area” of the proposed facility.
“A project of this magnitude, along with any associated construction, would create hundreds of jobs for highly paid union workers,” he said. “Further, the completed facility would ensure decades of maintenance work because of the hydroelectric power generated.”
The SEOPC proposal “aligns with United States power needs by contributing to clean energy production in rural areas while stimulating economic growth in Oklahoma,” Griffin continued. “Infrastructure such as this will fuel enrollment into DOL [Department of Labor] registered apprenticeship programs that train the next generation of skilled workers while growing the middle class.”
K.J. Payton, a journeyman electrician who is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union in Tulsa, also endorsed the SEOPC plan.
If the SEOPC 100-mile electric transmission line job were awarded to the IBEW, Local 1002 in Tulsa would construct the line, Payton said, “and these are Oklahoma linemen.” Similarly, Local 584 based in Tulsa “would do everything on building the hydro dam, the pump-back stuff – and these would be Oklahoma journeymen from eastern Oklahoma,” Payton said.
In addition, “With the manpower that this thing would create, inevitably you would need help from Texas, Arkansas, and some of our neighboring states from further out,” Payton said, “because there’s just not enough electricians” in southeastern Oklahoma “to man something like this.”
The SEOPC project “would create generations of good-paying jobs, not just in the construction but in the maintenance, the shutdowns and the retooling of it,” West said.
“Most of the time, if not all of the time, these would be federal prevailing-wage type jobs – good-paying jobs on the construction side,” said Payton, who said he was born and reared in Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. “There’s no jobs down there” in southeastern Oklahoma “that would pay like what these would pay,” he said.
Hydropower comparison
As for SEOPC’s proposed closed-loop pump-back storage hydroelectric plant, Payton, for comparison, pointed to the 260-megawatt pumped storage hydro plant near Salina that’s owned by the Grand River Dam Authority. That facility was completed more than 50 years ago. “It works great” and “has had zero issues,” Payton claimed.
Pump-back storage power plants, such as the one SEOPC wants to build on the Kiamichi River, are designed for “peaking” power during periods of high electricity demand.
Water in an upper reservoir flows down a channel, through turbines in a lower-level generator, and out into a lower reservoir. Water from the lower reservoir is pumped back to the upper reservoir during off-peak hours when the cost of electricity is lower.
“It’s like having a big battery,” said Charles Pratt of Tulsa, a registered electrical engineer who specializes in hydroelectric power plants.
The 1,200-megawatt projected output of SEOPC’s power plant would be more than double the entire maximum production from the hydroelectric power plants on waters managed by the Tulsa District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pratt noted.
The Corps of Engineers operates and maintains eight hydroelectric power plants that contain a total of 22 units that have a generating capacity of 584 megawatts of power.
Those hydro operations are at Lakes Keystone, Tenkiller, Fort Gibson, Eufaula, Broken Bow, plus the Webbers Falls Lock and Dam and the Robert S. Kerr Lock and Dam #15, both on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The eighth hydropower plant is on Lake Texoma, just across the border in Texas.
