By John Raffel
Correspondent
ALLEGAN – Does a county have the power to limit action of what’s being done with a dam?
Allegan County Board of Commissioners chairman Jim Storey pointed out that at the request of a county resident, last year the county board requested legal research into whether the county would have the authority to prevent Consumers Energy from curtailing its operation of the Calkins Street dam, should the utility choose to do so.
“Based upon a review of the transactions several decades ago in which the hydroelectric dam was transferred from the city of Allegan to C.E., the county government lacks the authority to require C.E. to maintain Allegan Lake level elevations between 614 and 615 feet,” Storey wrote in his recent newsletter.
“The legal research also determined that when in 1930 the county Board of Supervisors, the predecessor body to today’s Board of Commissioners, issued the city a permit for the dam’s construction, that action mirrored the issuance of a federal license,” Storey said. “The licenses have been renewed in 30 year increments. Today, authority for the dam’s operation by C.E. remains ‘exclusively’ with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and not the county.”