Mead & Hunt – Dam Safety

Because hydroelectric power plant safety was a big concern for President Jimmy Carter’s administration, the president enlisted the US Corps of Engineers to identify high hazard dams through the 1976 National Dam Safety Program.  Mead & Hunt contracted with the Corps to inspect dams in the Upper Midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois.  Between 1976 and 1979, Mead & Hunt surveyed more than 85 dams.

Nine years after the implementation of the National Dam Safety Program, the passage of the Electric Consumers Protection Act required non-federal public and private entities to obtain a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to operate a hydroelectric power project.  This new law opened the field of hydroelectric relicensing to Mead & Hunt, resulting in an increase in workload and staff for the hydro department.  The first major relicensing projects were for Brainerd and Cloquet of Potlatch, Minnesota.

The three main players in the new hydro department were Ashok Rajpal, Arie DeWaal, and Bruce Frueden.  In 1979, the first new, complete license application for the Hatfield project had begun.  This project was followed by licensing projects in Red Rock, Iowa, and a series of Class of ‘93 applications for Wisconsin Electric.