Alabama Power in the US is holding a series of workshops as part of its relicensing process for nine hydro power projects. The workshops will allow the public to share its opinions about the Coosa and Warrior river hydro power schemes and will discuss topics such as fisheries, water resources, land use, project operations and recreation.
The federal licences for the dams, which include the Smith and Bankhead dams on the Warrior river and the Weiss, Neely Henry, Logan Martin, Lay Mitchell, Bouldin and Jordan dams on the Coosa river, expire in 2007. Alabama Power must file applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for all the dams by 30 June 2005 if they are to continue operating the projects.
The dams produce a total of 1164MW of electricity, about 73% of Alabama Power’s hydro generation capacity. The company operates 14 dams in total which are capable of powering 600,000 homes.
Alabama Power is a subsidiary of Southern Company in the US.