Centralia City Light’s original designers had a unique vision before constructing the utility in 1929: build a diversion dam on the Nisqually River in Thurston County.
More than eight decades later, water from that dam still flows down a canal to penstocks downriver that plummet to a hydropower facility, generating about 25 percent of Centralia’s power.
“Isn’t it amazing, we have a nine-mile long canal through Yelm, and at this point we’re OK,” Centralia Mayor Harlan Thompson said of the dam and facility.
Located about 30 miles northeast of Centralia, the hydropower facility is considered City Light’s best kept secret.
Indeed, Centralia officials say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wasn’t even aware of the facilities until the Nisqually Indian Tribe raised concern about migrating fish inadvertently swimming in the diversion canal and getting flushed toward turbines.
“FERC, of course, doesn’t like it,” Centralia City Light Director Ed Williams said.
But since the federal agency licensed the hydropower facility in 1997, City Light has added a trap and escape channel for fish and has made bank improvements where water has seeped from the earthen canal onto private property.
Mayor Thompson said he knows of no other small city the size of Centralia that can boast of having its own dam.
However, that has not tampered occasional citywide speculation on the idea of selling the utility.
But even with a five-month-long viability analysis underway for City Light, the mayor said any such talk is foolish.
“We have something that’s a real jewel,” Thompson said of the dam and hydropower facility. “We want to make sure it’s going to last.”
As just like anything else auctioned by the city, if the utility were put up for sale it would go to the highest bidder. And there’s no way of preventing a utility like Puget Sound Energy, where rates are significantly higher, from absorbing City Light and charging higher rates in Centralia, Thompson pointed out.
Also, as City Light Director Williams notes, the utility makes up a significant portion of the city’s general fund — more than $1 million. If that was cut from the budget, he said it would also likely reflect in reductions at City Hall.
“It’s not trivial,” Williams said.
