Marcia Barnes • Clay County Progress Chris Saucier, TVA Dam Safety Project Manager, answered questions and listened to comments from the community at the TVA Open House held at the Clay County Schools cafeteria in Hayesville on Thursday, May 8.
By Marcia Barnes
Staff Writer
Three hundred people filled the Clay County Schools cafeteria for a TVA Open House in Hayesville on Thursday, May 8. The TVA held the meeting to hear public input on proposed safety modifications to the Chatuge dam spillway.
Two hundred and forty-five attendees signed in and many registered their email address to receive updates on the project.
This was the first in-person meeting on proposed modifications to correct existing problems at the Chatuge spillway. Chris Saucier, TVA Dam Safety Project Manager answered questions and heard comments throughout the evening from folks giving their perspective views.
Representatives of TVA Natural Resources were accessible to speak with the public and Erica McLamb, TVA’s National Environmental Policy Act Compliance Specialist answered questions on policy and about submission of online comments.
Public input being sought by TVA on the Chatuge project continues through Wednesday, May 28. Comments received during the public scoping period will be reviewed and considered during the development of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement document. The report will summarize public and agency comments and TVA expects to release the draft by late 2025/early 2026. Once completed, the report will be available at: www.tva/com/NEPA.
What will the National Environmental Policy Act process be looking at in the review? What kind of things are going to be considered in a decision about a modification to the Chatuge Dam spillway ?
McLamb said that they will be looking at the economic impacts and natural impacts on marine life and plant life. “We are required to have the study complete within two years, that’s when we’re shooting to have our document complete,” McLamb said.
Then, the public will have 45 days to comment on the document content and findings. Additional public open house meetings will be scheduled after the publication of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and open house dates, times and locations will be posted on the project website.
The safety study at Chatuge Dam has been ongoing for two years with the first assessment made in 2019.
“We have a process of pretty rigorous vetting on conclusions and some of the viewers felt that we needed to go back and visit part of our assessment,” Saucier said. “A second expert panel released their report in another two years and confident of the conclusion that they could agree on the state of the spillway they started to get the funds together to initiate the study.”
TVA continues to monitor and inspect the spillway, repairing joints and sealing cracks in the spillway slab and walls as they are identified. In the process of making repairs, not all are successful. Some of them don’t work and that is a concern for the future safety and longevity of the dam.
“That’s the reason why every time we spill we have an inspection crew that comes out when the spill is done. They inspect every single joint looking for that,” Saucier said.
Could the spillway handle a rare storm event, an excessive amount of water going over the spillway?
Saucier said that the TVA does not rate their inventory. “It really goes to the level of preparedness for an incident. I would say we would give Chatuge our highest level of attention.”
Saucier said that he wanted to be clear on questions about a cofferdam. “Every alternative that is on the table employs a cofferdam and presumes a cofferdam will be used, every one of those. They have different purposes. In these alternatives that we are doing active construction inside the spillway, the purpose of the cofferdam is to try to minimize the amount of time we might have to put water on the spillway.
“For those options where we are building a new spillway, it’s that we’re about to excavate a really big hole and we need something to function as the dam in the vicinity of that very big hole. There is a certain limit to the height of those because if we hold water back and it can’t come over the spillway to release water from the reservoir, then that water will keep building up and building up and we run the risk of over topping the dam. So there are limits to the cofferdam.”
Saucier said that for each alternative modification the cofferdam is different and in a different location. At this point of the study, he said that they haven’t decided on the nature of its construction.
How far would it stretch? The present spillway is 300 feet; the cofferdam could be 500 to 600 feet.
When a decision is reached on the modification, when would the draw-down of the reservoir occur? Saucier said that depends on the option taken.
“The duration which people are very concerned about, and rightly so, we’re in the process of trying to optimize construction so we can get a better handle on the risk. TVA is refining the number,” Saucier said.
Asked if there is a safety issue in the draw-down itself, he said what they have seen when there is a draw-down is that they do need to enroll partners, the state department, wildlife officials and have a strong campaign about safe usage of the lake. Saucier said that the lake would be there, it just wouldn’t be the same footprint and the pool draw-down would be temporary to allow for construction and repairs.
“We don’t know the extent of that yet, but I expect a lot of cooperation.”
Other questions asked about after the decision-making process on the modification centered around the work and when construction would begin.
“In the process we’re executing now there would actually be pieces of the design which would be initiated pretty close to the exploration of the site. We feel that by the time the study ends, we will already have initiated the design.
“What looks like construction at the site is roughly three years out. It may be only moving trailers on the site and staging,” Saucier said.
TVA representatives who spoke with guests throughout the open house said that the overall reaction is that the community at large wants the dam at Chatuge fixed.
Saucier said, “I think everybody was very fair in recognizing that the project work needs to be done. Their concerns are for the impacts, can we get this draw-down shorter and execute the construction in a way that lessens the impacts to those in the community.
TVA published a Notice of Intent on April 21, the public scoping period ends May 28. A public TVA Open House was held in Towns County, Ga. on Tuesday, May 13 and a second virtual open house with the same format scheduled from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15. Registration for the virtual meeting is at: www.TVA.com/Chatuge.