Electricity From Our River?

[The opinions stated here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the City of Geneva, elected officials or municipal staff. Positions stated here should not be construed as final but as part of an evolving discussion.]

Our bucolic town of Geneva has many virtues that make it envied by other municipalities in the region and a much-desired destination for living, shopping, dining and all-around recreating. Anyone familiar with our hamlet of twenty-something thousand residents can probably name at least three things that they really like about our town. One item that usually makes it on the short list of assets is our river.

The Fox River has always been an important asset since humanity dipped their toes in it millenia ago. Back then it would have been a source for water and food for those original North American settlers. As time marched on; colonization turned it into a source for energy. Settlements along the Fox River installed dams to harness the appreciable power of running water to animate mechanical equipment such as mills. Our own dam did the same and the sculpture at the northeast corner of the river and State Street was born from the remnants of the mechanisms that harnessed that energy. In all, there are about 17 dams remaining, but none exercise their original role since municipal electricity and electric motors made water power and river-proximity unnecessary.

Time continued its march and pre-EPA industrialization leveraged the Fox River (not uniquely) as a convenient sewer. Even in my short 50-some years, I remember places like the Woodruff and Edwards Foundry in Elgin smelling something like rotten ham and imparting that same aroma to the river. It was well known that one should not be swimming in the Fox River and that eating anything that might still be alive was generally unwise.

We seem to have come something approaching full circle in our collective consciousness with regard to natural resources. The Fox River no longer actively fills the role of waste disposal conduit and it is [very] slowly recovering. The river, though, will never achieve its original pristine state simply through the cessation of waste dumping for a number of reasons.

We have road salts and other contaminants from modern cities that wash, untreated, into our streams and rivers. We have vast regions of farmland that leech enormous quantities of agricultural contaminants into our waterways. These agricultural contaminants (from fertilizer) are the primary cause of the massive “dead zone”...an area devoid of any oxygen or life...at the mouth of the Mississippi River. As the world population continues to swell; we are tied more and more to those fertilizers to eek greater and greater yields from those farmlands. And finally; our obsolete dams have altered the ecosystem by changing the environment. That altered environment impedes the native, migratory fish species and makes it more hospitable to invasive species in the deep, still waters above the dams.

Let me pause here for a moment to state what I think is the ultimate, aspirational goal for the Fox River. The target should be the return of water quality and native species to its pre-colonial state. This is a pipe dream to be sure. We can … and have… mitigated some things through such things as the treatment of municipal wastewater. That’s easy because it is a “point source”. Put your time/money/effort at this point (at the end of your sanitary sewer line) and you can affect real improvements in that area. It is far more difficult to address the “non-point” sources like agricultural runoff.

Some may recall that, some years ago, a spate of drownings below the uniquely dangerous “low head” dams got many citizens, environmental groups, municipalities and the state talking seriously about their removal. Those discussions died off for reasons of will, coordination, fractured opinion and money. It was a laudable effort. The great upshot of removing the dams...aside from the remediation of the drowning hazard...is that the river would again be free-flowing, less muddy and native fish populations would have a chance to reestablish themselves. Not being an expert; I don’t know whether this would make life more difficult for the bottom feeders (e.g. invasive carp species that decimate river vegetation), but giving native species a chance to compete with them can’t hurt.

Anyway; my point here is that removing the dams would be an important step in restoring the ecosystem. That goal is something that we should aspire to...but can it ever happen really? There is obviously the money issue. Coordinating with the myriad communities might be something akin to herding cats. It would only take a few communities to hold up action by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (the body of authority on the river), to make the entire effort for naught. There would be the NIMBY factor for those with piers and boats above the dams. Property owners above the dams might get another 40 feet or more of land (on which they might have to pay taxes). Some communities may derive economic benefit from the deep water above the dams (The St. Charles river boats could no longer run). There is also the accumulated silt above the dams (likely rich in industrial contaminants) to be dealt with.

Near term (i.e. 20 years?); I don’t see us being able to remove the dams. If that is the reality; is there something positive we can do with Geneva’s dam in the interim? Maybe we could take a cue from our own history and harness that power. What if we used the river to generate electricity? Several problems come to mind: 1) the small, municipal hydroelectric plants I have seen are butt ugly. Given that downtown Geneva exists, almost exclusively, because of the character that we have carefully maintained; plopping an eyesore in the middle of the river should not be done without thinking long and hard. 2) Can we recoup the costs of such an investment in that [arbitrary] 20 year window? 3) If we become dependent on that hydroelectric power; will that not then make it an impediment to moving toward our ultimate goal of restoring the ecosystem? 4) Importantly; we must remember that it is the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that really has the authority on such matters.

I would be curious to hear your thoughts.