The 1500 kilowatt capacity Nooksack Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant was constructed at Nooksack Falls on the Nooksack River in 1906 by Stone & Webster, which is the second oldest operating facility in western Washington.[1] The plant operated for over 90 years and ceased operation in 1997 due to a fire which destroyed the generator. The generator was replaced in 2003 and the plant resumed operations.[citation needed]
In 1889, an association of investors led by Pierre B. Cornwall formed the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC). The company was mostly made up of wealthy California businessmen who were investing heavily into Bellingham with the vision that it would one day become an important urban center for commerce and trade. The BBIC invested in several diverse enterprises such as shipping, coal, mining, railroad construction, real estate sales and utilities. Even though their dreams of turning Bellingham into a Pacific Northwest metropolis never came to fruition, the BBIC made an immense contribution to the economic development of Bellingham. The BBIC had the franchise for providing electricity to the city of Bellingham, which at that time primarily went to street lighting and electric streetcars. However, by 1903 the small generator powering Bellingham was proving to be inadequate for the growing city. The BBIC began developing a hydroelectric plant on the North Fork of the Nooksack River, below Nooksack Falls.[1]
In 1904, the BBIC's electrical franchise with the city of Bellingham was up for renewal and the city council made it abundantly clear that they were not happy with BBIC's performance up to this point. The city event threatened to build a municipally owned hydroelectric plant at Whatcom Falls. After a survey showing that BBIC was supplying Bellingham with cheaper power than any of the municipal proposals, the city subsequently backed off.[1]
In addition to the hostility felt by the city council, the BBIC was also encountering construction problems at Nooksack Falls. In 1903 the BBIC had bored six tunnels, yet the generator and transformers for the plant were waiting fifty miles away. Moving heavy hydroelectric equipment through the mountains to the Nooksack site proved to be a challenge. The heaviest equipment ended up being shipped to the railhead at Glacier, loaded on a sled and pulled through the mountains. The first piece of heavy equipment to be brought in was a crane with a forty thousand pound capacity. Lighter equipment and parts were brought in by pack animals. Many local residents were paid to lease out their animals. However, all the difficulties of maintaining a generator and trying to construct the Nooksack Site took its toll on BBIC. In 1905 the board of directors announced the sale of its utility holdings.[1]
Stone & Webster
In 1905, Stone & Webster bought out the power and lighting properties that were once owned by the BBIC. These included the York Street Steam plant and the partially built Nooksack Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant. Stone & Webster took over construction operations and on September 21, 1906, Bellingham received power from the plant via a 47-mile-long (76km) transmission line.[1]
For much of the plant's history, it served as the center of a small community. Because of its remote location, rugged landscape, and primitive transportation, the only practical way to operate the plant was to have employees on site. The utility company employed one chief-operator and two assistant operators, housed in three frame cottages. In addition, a school teacher was hired to tutor children. A two-story wood frame hotel was built around 1905 to house company officials, construction workers and other visitors. A section of the hotel was used as a classroom. Employment for the plant reached its peak between 1906 and the mid-1920s. Once the plant became automated by 1978, the cottages were demolished in order to discourage squatters from living there.[1]
A close up of Nooksack Falls from the Lower Viewpoint
Bellingham is the county seat and most populous city of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. Located 52 miles (84 km) southeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, 90 miles (140 km) north of Seattle, and 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border, Bellingham is in between two major metropolitan areas, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. The city's population was 80,885 at the 2010 United States Census. With a 2019 population estimate of 92,314, Bellingham is the twelfth-most populous city in the state of Washington.
Whatcom County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, the population was 201,140. It is bordered by Canada on the north, Okanogan County on the east, Skagit County on the south, and the Salish Sea on the west. The county seat and largest city is Bellingham.
Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.
Ontario Hydro, established in 1906 as the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, was a publicly owned electricity utility in the Province of Ontario. It was formed to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara Falls, and soon developed its own generation resources by buying private generation stations and becoming a major designer and builder of new stations. As most of the readily developed hydroelectric sites became exploited, the corporation expanded into building coal-fired generation and then nuclear-powered facilities. Renamed as "Ontario Hydro" in 1974, by the 1990s it had become one of the largest, fully integrated electricity corporations in North America.
The Nooksack River is a river in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Washington. It drains an area of the Cascade Range around Mount Baker, near the Canada–US border. The lower river flows through a fertile agricultural area before emptying into Bellingham Bay and, via the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia, the Pacific Ocean. The river begins in three main forks, the North Fork, Middle Fork, and South Fork. The North Fork is sometimes considered the main river. Including the North Fork, the Nooksack is approximately 75 miles (121 km) long. All three forks originate in the Mount Baker Wilderness.
Manitoba Hydro is the electric power and natural gas utility in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1961, it is a provincial Crown Corporation, governed by the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board and the Manitoba Hydro Act. Today the company operates 15 interconnected generating stations. It has more than 527,000 electric power customers and more than 263,000 natural gas customers. Since most of the electrical energy is provided by hydroelectric power, the utility has low electricity rates. Stations in Northern Manitoba are connected by a HVDC system, the Nelson River Bipole, to customers in the south. The internal staff are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 998 while the outside workers are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034.
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is a Washington state energy utility providing electrical power and natural gas primarily in the Puget Sound region of the northwest United States. The utility serves electricity to more than 1.1 million customers in Island, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom counties; and provides natural gas to 750,000 customers in King, Kittitas, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston counties. The company has a 6,000-square-mile (16,000 km2) electric and natural gas service area.
TransAlta Corporation is an electricity power generator and wholesale marketing company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a privately owned corporation and its shares are traded publicly. It operates over 70 power plants in Canada, the United States, and Australia. TransAlta operates geothermal, wind, hydro, natural gas, and coal power generation facilities. The company has been recognized for its leadership in sustainability by the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index, the FTSE4Good Index, and the Jantzi Social Index. TransAlta is Canada's largest investor-owned renewable energy provider, and is simultaneously one of Canada's largest corporate carbon polluters. The company has on several occasions illegally manipulated the energy market to drive up power prices.
The Hartford Electric Light Company (HELCO) is a defunct electrical company that was located on Pearl Street in Hartford, Connecticut. It was merged with the Connecticut Power Company in 1958 and later these became Connecticut Light & Power. Its former corporate headquarters building and main facility are in the Ann Street Historic District.
State Route 539 is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of Washington. The highway travels through northwestern Whatcom County and connects Interstate 5 (I-5) in Bellingham with Lynden and the Canadian border near Langley, British Columbia. Its name, the Guide Meridian, is derived from the Guide meridian that it follows while traveling due north–south.
Stone & Webster was an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles Stone and Edwin S. Webster in 1889. In the early 20th century, Stone & Webster was known for operating streetcar systems in many cities across the United States; examples include Dallas, Houston and Seattle. The company grew to provide engineering, construction, environmental, and plant operation and maintenance services, and it has long been involved in power generation projects, starting with hydroelectric plants of the late 19th-century; and with most American nuclear power plants.
Carolinas–Virginia Tube Reactor (CVTR), also known as Parr Nuclear Station, was an experimental pressurized tube heavy water nuclear power reactor at Parr, South Carolina in Fairfield County. It was built and operated by the Carolinas Virginia Nuclear Power Associates. CVTR was a small test reactor, capable of generating 17 megawatts of electricity. It was officially commissioned in December 1963 and left service in January 1967.
Croton Dam is an earth-filled embankment dam and powerplant complex on the Muskegon River in Croton Township, Newaygo County, Michigan. It was built in 1907 under the direction of William D. Fargo by the Grand Rapids - Muskegon Power Company, a predecessor of Consumers Energy. The 40-foot-high (12 m) dam impounds 7.2 billion U.S. gallons (6 billion imp. gal/27 billion L) of water in its 1,209-acre (489 ha) reservoir and is capable of producing 8,850 kilowatts at peak outflow. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Kakabeka Generating Station is a hydroelectric facility operated by Ontario Power Generation on the bank of the Kaministiquia River, 2 km (1.2 mi) downstream from Kakabeka Falls in the community of Kakabeka Falls, Ontario, 30 km (19 mi) west of Thunder Bay. The plant provides energy to the city of Thunder Bay and area. The station is one of ten hydroelectric stations in Ontario Power Generation's Northwest Plant Group, and is remotely operated from Thunder Bay.
The history of Bellingham, Washington, as it is now known, begins with the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century.
An electrical grid, electric grid or power grid, is an interconnected network for delivering electricity from producers to consumers. It consists of:
Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU) is a municipally-owned public utility serving Cedar Falls, Iowa and is a member of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities (IAMU). CFU provides municipal water service, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas service, and combined cable television, Internet access, and phone service to its customers. CFU serves approximately 19,000 Cedar Falls residents and businesses with over 14,900 broadband customers.
Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad was built in the northwestern part of Washington, between the town of Whatcom, now Bellingham, then to the town of Sumas, to connect with the Canadian Pacific Railway for a continental connection.
The history of electricity sector in Canada has played a significant role in the economic and political life of the country since wide-scale industrial and commercial power services spread across the country in the 1880s. The development of hydropower in the early 20th century has profoundly affected the economy and the political life in Canada and has come to symbolize the transition from "old " industrialism of the 19th century to a "new", modern and diversified, Canadian economy.
Electricity in the Puget Sound region is a significant factor in people's lives, an enabler for the modern economy, and has a unique relationship with the region's environment.
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