Uncommon Dialogue | Hydropower, River Restoration, and Public Safety

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There are more than 90,000 dams in the federal National Inventory of Dams, of which about 2,500 have hydropower facilities for electricity generation. Many more dams in the United States are not inventoried, have unclear jurisdiction, or are not identified. Dams serve many roles including electricity generation, flood control, irrigation, navigation, water supply, and recreation. Some dams, however, pose safety risks if they have not been properly maintained or have outlived their useful lives, and accomplishing this is difficult if they are not properly tracked. 

In 2018, Stanford University’s Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance launched an Uncommon Dialogue to develop an agreement and action plan for these dams to advance the renewable energy and storage benefits of hydropower while enhancing the environmental and economic benefits of healthy rivers. 

Participants in the Uncommon Dialogue on Hydropower, River Restoration, and Public Safety included non-governmental organizations, hydropower companies, trade associations, government agencies, universities, and investors. 

These participants developed the 2020 Joint Statement of Collaboration. The joint statement identifies two urgent challenges that drive participants to define hydropower’s role in a clean energy future while ensuring the protection of healthy rivers.

  • To rapidly and substantially decarbonize the nation’s electricity system, the parties recognize the role that U.S. hydropower plays as an important renewable energy resource and for integrating variable solar and wind power into the U.S. electric grid.
  • At the same time, our nation’s waterways, and the biodiversity and ecosystem services they sustain, are vulnerable to the compounding factors of a changing climate, habitat loss, and alteration of river processes. 

The Joint Statement outlined seven areas for collaboration (note that as of 2024, this has evolved to eight areas, to include 8. Workforce Development; and that working groups 3 and 5 combined): 

  1. Technology: Accelerate development of hydropower technologies and practices to improve generation efficiency, environmental performance, and solar and wind integration
  2. Safety: Advocate for improved U.S. dam safety
  3. Basin-Scale Planning and Data: Increase basin-scale decision-making and access to river-related data
  4. Valuation: Improve the measurement, valuation of and compensation for hydropower flexibility and reliability services and support for enhanced environmental performance
  5. Off-Site Mitigation: Advance effective river restoration through improved off-site mitigation strategies
  6. Licensing: Improve federal hydropower licensing, relicensing, and license surrender processes
  7. Workforce Development: Messaging how we talk about who can participate in the three Rs, career fairs, and improving the mentorship world for disciplines represented in the three Rs.

Uncommon Dialogue Accomplishments To Date

The Uncommon Dialogue working groups provided key insights that formed the basis for more than $3 billion in funding provisions related to dams and hydropower in the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). The Uncommon Dialogue participants made clear to the Biden administration and Congress that funding, tax incentives, and other federal support for the rehabilitation, retrofit, and removal of the nation’s 90,000 dams would help improve public safety, increase free-flowing rivers, expand low-carbon generation, and create jobs. 

At the end of the two-year work period, the project team will compile a portfolio of key documents and deliverables produced by the Uncommon Dialogue for sharing with the broader hydropower, river restoration, and public safety communities. This portfolio will demonstrate how the process was able to bring together a cross-section of perspectives to advance important challenges faced by the hydropower, river restoration, and public safety communities. The concepts documented in this portfolio will help inform DOE’s R&D priorities and ultimately lead to tangible process on the Three Rs (restoration, retrofit, and removal). 

This portfolio will be publicly available on the Uncommon Dialogue webpage and can be highlighted at a conference session at a national hydropower conference or other events attended by hydropower, river restoration, and public safety community members.

The work of the Uncommon Dialogue is generously funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Contacts:

Dan Reicher, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, dreicher@stanford.edu

Kelsey Rugani, Kearns & West, krugani@kearnswest.com