More questions than answers about future of dams
ELKHART — Utility officials apologized but said they just don’t have a lot of answers yet regarding the fate of two hydroelectric dams and that the results of various studies are coming.
Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) on Thursday night hosted its second open house concerning the hydroelectric dam in Elkhart as well as the facility in Mottville, Michigan, both on the St. Joseph River.
Both facilities are more than 100 years old, and the utility last week announced it would begin a years-long planning process to determine whether to seek recommissioning of the dams and continue producing electricity or allow the licenses to lapse and remove the dams.
Hundreds attended a somewhat chaotic session at the Northern Indiana Event Center on Tuesday, so I&M added more chairs and changed the format for Thursday. Fewer people attended the second session.
“A lot of people did come back from the other night,” said Stephanny Smith, director of communications and marketing for I&M. “We saw a lot of familiar faces from Tuesday evening, so we know that did make us feel good and gave people the opportunity to share when maybe they felt like they couldn’t do that Tuesday evening.”
Among those who left the Tuesday meeting feeling dissatisfied was longtime Elkhart attorney Jack Cittadine, who correctly predicted the crowd would be smaller for the second meeting.
“The meeting appeared to be totally perfunctory,” Cittadine said. “They’re required by law to have a so-called community hearing and it was very poorly noticed. People got letters. I did not. It was on an obscure website.”
Tom Shoff, president of the St. Joseph River Association, also said I&M let the meeting on Tuesday get out of hand.
Smith, the utility company spokesperson, said I&M listened to those from the first meeting who said they did not feel they were heard.
For Thursday’s meeting, instead of sending people to the I&M experts at easels, I&M had an open-mic, question-and-answer session. People could either write down their question on a piece of paper and submit it to an I&M team member to be read into the microphone, or they could walk up to the microphone to ask questions themselves.
“We did tweak the format,” Smith said. “So again, sharing all the same basic information, so if we had some new folks coming in, they still got that. But then just giving people an opportunity to ask the questions. Again, letting them know we probably don’ t have a lot of answers right now – just being very upfront with that.”
I&M said it would conduct a decommissioning study, a relicensing study and a socioeconomic analysis to understand how the river flow and property values are affected.
Brian Bergsma, director of governmental affairs, led the question-and-answer session again Thursday. When asked specific questions about potential flooding and how the cost of real estate would be affected, Bergsma found himself repeating many of the answers.
“And again, we are very early in this process,” Bergsma said. “We don’t even know what the answers to the two options are.”
As he did on Tuesday, Bergsma emphasized that no decision has been made about the dams.
Bergsma was met at both meeting with accusations of lying to the audience and avoiding questions. There were even threats to sue I&M if the dams were decommissioned.
“I’ll apologize if I’m coming across as avoiding your questions, ma’am,” Bergsma said after one audience member spoke. “I am doing the best of my ability. Again, we could have waited until all of the studies were completed and we filed our integrated resource plan, and then we have a discussion, but until we file the integrated resource plan … we don’t know the answers to the things you’re asking.”
Smith said utility would record the questions and comments from residents and will use those to help I&M decide how to proceed.
