NOAA

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – As the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane season approaches, U.S. Army North hosted more than 150 military and civilian partners who gathered in person and virtually for a Hurricane Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) Drill at the Army Medical Department ROC Drill Facility at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, May 25.

“The individuals and organizations assembled here today have scores and scores and scores of experience during natural disasters,” said Lt. Gen. John R. Evans, Jr., U.S. Army North commander. “With experts predicting increased storm activity this season, the scenario we will collectively work through represents a worst-case event in which Title 10 support is required.”

The primary purpose of the rehearsal was to prepare participants to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency — the lead federal agency for hurricane response — during the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season, which begins June 1. In addition to response and recovery-focused discussions, Evans also emphasized the importance of supporting the National Response Framework.

“We want to ensure if and when we move in to support state and federal agencies, we’re doing it in such a way that it’s congruent with solving problems…” said Evans speaking to the interagency audience.

Before working through the scenario, ROC drill participants heard remarks delivered by a variety of FEMA senior representatives, including Assistant Administrator for Field Operations, John Rabin, who is responsible for developing, maintaining, and deploying the agency’s disaster response workforce consisting of 13,000 personnel.

“The partnership with ARNORTH and NORTHCOM is one of our most critical ones that we rely on throughout the year, particularly hurricane season,” said Rabin. “Most important, they help us focus on lifesaving and life-sustaining operations that are really critical in the first 24 to 96 hours.”

The ROC drill scenario focused on exercising joint capabilities to support vital needs during two Category 4 hurricanes, and a Category 5 hurricane with multiple landfalls in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“As we’ve talked to our stakeholders, our number one issue is supply chain,” said FEMA Region 6 Administrator, Tony Robinson, “We have to make sure our contracts and our resources are ready to go and we know what those supply chain issues are.”

The DoD has a long history of providing military support to civil authorities when requested by FEMA and approved by the Secretary of Defense. Since 2005, USARNORTH, as the Joint Force Land Component (JFLCC) for U.S. Northern Command, has supported more than 40 tropical storms and hurricanes including Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Dorian.

“It’s constant planning for us, but we are one team. It doesn’t matter what federal agency we’re from,” said, FEMA Region 4 Administrator, Gracia Szczech. “We’ve learned that it’s never a single state

event. We always have multistate events and that’s what we plan for.”

Colorado State University, which has forecast hurricanes since 1984, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, predict “above-average” hurricane activity for this year. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center will update the 2022 Atlantic seasonal outlook in early August, just prior to the historical peak of the season.

The annual hurricane season in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. This year’s storm names include Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Ian, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Martin, Nicole, Owen, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tobias, Virginie, and Walter.

For additional information, contact the ARNORTH and JFLCC public affairs office at 210-428-9835 or [email protected]; for photos and/or videos, visit: https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/ARNORTH.

Expanding the theoretical knowledge of hurricanes and tropical cyclones is essential to improving early warning systems, especially in a changing climate with increasing potential to fuel the severity of these weather events and their impact on military operations.

In recognition of his highly-impactful research to advance that knowledge, Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Distinguished Professor of Meteorology Michael T. Montgomery has been named the 2021 recipient of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) Buchan Prize. The award recognizes an RMetS member whose published research over the previous five years, cumulatively, represents the most important contributions to the field of meteorology.

Throughout his career, Montgomery’s research has led to countless seminal contributions to our understanding of varied theoretical aspects of these dangerous storms, providing foundational science for the Department of the Navy’s Climate Action 2030 plan to prepare for and combat climate change impacts, and to build a climate-ready naval force. And his work continues … Montgomery is currently in the first year of a four-year, $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to advance his research into these powerful storms.

Montgomery first became interested in formation and intensification of tropical storms, known as cyclogenesis, after attending a lecture related to the topic as a Harvard graduate student. Around that time, the Summer Olympics were taking place in Seoul, South Korea, and Montgomery, an avid swimmer, was intently watching the swimming competitions.

Just as the Olympics were getting underway, America was watching a category 5 hurricane named Gilbert barrel down the Caribbean in 1988, killing more than 300 people in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Mexico. Hurricane Gilbert is still tied for the second most intense Atlantic hurricane in history.

With all of these events happening simultaneously, Montgomery said he was compelled to learn more about the science – fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and physics – behind these storms.

Montgomery has supported the research of many NPS master and PhD students. In fact, NPS maintains a strong relationship with the Naval Oceanography community. Promotion to the rank of commander or above requires an advanced education leading to the Master of Science in Meteorology and/or Physical Oceanography that is almost exclusively obtained at NPS.

“Dr. Montgomery’s enthusiasm was infectious in the classroom,” said Lt. Cmdr. Scott Britton, a former student of Montgomery’s currently serving as the METOC Officer for Carrier Strike Group 8. “As my research advisor, I was able to explore with a great amount of independence. In addition to learning a great deal about tropical systems, I worked with Amazon Web Services and got my feet wet with advanced cloud computing, which was challenging, but rewarding. Dr. Montgomery always pushed us to innovate and discover beyond the classroom and I apply these lessons every day as a naval oceanographer afloat.”

Today, Montgomery supports the research of several graduate students at NPS to track hurricanes, or the conditions that could potentially form a hurricane. They look for recirculating regions of low surface pressure that provide a protected space for a disturbance to move with a parent wave, and become a self-sustaining storm. This process was coined as the “marsupial paradigm” by Montgomery and his colleagues Tim Dunkerton and Zhuo Wang in 2009 because they related the low-pressure zone within the parent wave or disturbance to a marsupial pouch that keeps the baby safe.

Since these zones also have an intrinsic boundary that tends to protect them from exterior intrusions of dry air (often called “anti-fuel”) and retain the moisture (“fuel”) that the deep convective thunderstorms are supplying to the air within the pouch, these zones are called “pouches.” One implication of this new model is that a well-defined pouch acts to protect a fledging disturbance from dry, desert winds off Africa, allowing the proto-vortex within it to strengthen and intensify into a tropical depression, and eventually even a hurricane. In the Atlantic, there’s about a 20 percent chance a disturbance will become a tropical storm.

Since that initial paper, Montgomery has worked with several co-workers to publish a series of papers further fleshing out the theory and its potential forecasting applications. In 2010, he led a major field experiment funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) called the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics, or PREDICT, to test the marsupial paradigm. Coordination with NASA’s Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) project and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Intensity Forecasting Experiment (IFEX) project led PREDICT to huge successes in showing how applicable the paradigm was in hurricane predictions.

A lot of these pouches come off Africa, and Montgomery and NPS Meteorologist Mark Boothe have developed an automated technique to look for them. On July 7, for example, they saw 24 potential pouches. For each one, they mapped out different factors like relative humidity and wind speed, among others, to see how much potential each pouch had to nurture a tropical depression or hurricane. Several students are looking at case studies from the past to better understand which factors are the most important … It’s critical research, and Montgomery keeps his students engaged in every aspect of it.

“We want to teach our officer students the cutting-edge of this research to ensure they are prepared to make wise and sound decisions whether they’re at sea or planning air operations,” Montgomery says.

U.S. Air Force 2nd Lt. Nicohl Corretjer, a student in NPS’ Meteorology program, is performing her research with Montgomery. She has shared a deep interest in hurricanes for a long time, coming from Puerto Rico which is all too familiar with these extreme weather events. After taking a couple of Montgomery’s classes early on, she quickly decided she wanted to work with him.

“I like his personality and his teaching style is very straightforward, which is something I really appreciate,” she says. She sees her experience directly helping her at her next station as a forecaster for the Air Force in Hawaii.

Montgomery remains passionate about furthering society’s knowledge on hurricanes, especially in the realm of intensification and the many distinct factors that determine whether a tropical storm intensifies, or not.

The marsupial paradigm is just one of many contributions Montgomery has made to storm theory. Others include asymmetric balance theory, vortex Rossby waves, vortex alignment and resiliency, super-intensity and potential intensity theory, tropical-cyclone intensification, the role of resolved eddy processes, the role of the frictional boundary layer, the vorticity dynamics of tropical cyclogenesis, and aspects of tropical cyclogenesis within synoptic-scale waves.

Montgomery’s grant from the National Science Foundation will support research into secondary eyewall formations. When storms intensify significantly, they can actually form an outer eyewall, and in rare cases, even a third. How these outer eyewalls are formed is not well understood, so it will be up to Montgomery, Boothe, some colleagues, and a few NPS students as well, to explore this question while working on a few other projects along the way.

“It’s going to keep us busy,” Montgomery smiled. “We have lots to do.”

HONOLULU — The Coast Guard, Navy, Hawaii Fire Department, Hawaii Police Department, Ocean Safety and other responders successfully concluded two search and rescue exercises (SAREX) on the Island of Hawaii, May 20. 2022.

Coast Guard Sector Honolulu personnel hold SAREXs annually throughout the Hawaiian Islands which are designed to evaluate notification and response procedures and identify shortfalls in communication and coordination of response during SAR incidents.

“This was the first time for me participating and assisting with planning or organization of our joint SAREX,” said Darwin Okinaka, an assistant fire chief with the Hawai’i Fire Department. “Charles Turner, a Coast Guard Sector Honolulu Search and Rescue coordinator, and I connected and started planning back in 2020, and due to COVID, we had to cancel the exercise. Gladly this year allowed us to start up again. Due to the duration and many new faces in our rescue companies, I asked Charles if it would be possible to do an exercise on each side of the island, since we have one rescue company on each side. He gladly agreed and we coordinated in that manner.”

The first exercise began Monday in Hilo with asset open houses at Hilo International Airport and the Port of Hilo.

“What was nice this year was that Charles had the idea of hosting a presentation “show and tell” day prior to the exercise days, which went into more detail about what everyone’s capabilities were, and how they could integrate with our operations,” said Okinaka. This portion enhanced the experience for everyone tremendously. Because of that, we included all of our Rescue personnel, not only those who were on shift that day.”

“We also for the first time included DLNR/DOCARE and the Navy HSM-37 group. They were beneficial to have and see what they have available for us to request assistance from.”

The following day the partners held a mock search for an overdue kayaker at the Hilo Bayfront Beach Park.

Once a simulated call was made to Hawaii County dispatch reporting a missing Kayaker, the agencies established an Incident Command Post and deployed response teams to conduct searches of the area for a mannequin representing the missing person which was located by a Hawaii Fire Department Chopper-2 helicopter crew and was retrieved by the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter William Hart and taken to awaiting emergency medical services.

“Each Hawaiian Island is unique and presents its own challenges when it comes to the search and rescue mission,” said Lt. Lindsey Neumann, the Coast Guard Sector Honolulu command center chief. “SAREXs are great relationship building opportunities that test our interagency collaboration and capabilities to improve our operational effectiveness.”

On Thursday, the partners moved from Hilo to Kailua-Kona for a second similar exercise holding an asset open house at the Kona International Airport and Honokohau Harbor.

On Friday, a second open-water exercise was held off Kawaihae with a similar case of an overdue Kayaker.

Partner agencies established an Incident Command Post and deployed their responders with the mannequin representing the missing person being found by the Hawaii Fire Department Chopper-2 crew and taken to awaiting medical services on shore.

“This truly was a great experience for us and being able to make the relationships that we now have to better our collaboration in the future is awesome,” said Okinaka.

Involved in this year’s SAREXs on Island of Hawaii:

-Coast Guard Sector Honolulu Command Center personnel

-Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point Dolphin helicopter and HC-130 Hercules with aircrews

-Coast Guard Cutter William Hart

-United States Navy SH-60B Seahawk Aircrew

-Hawaii County Fire Department Responders

-Hawaii County Police Department Responders

-Hawaii County Emergency Medical Services Responders

-Hawaii County Ocean Safety and Life Guard Services Responders

-Department of Land and Natural Resources Hawaii Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement Responders

-NOAA Office of Law Enforcement Boat crew

The goals of the Coast Guard search and rescue program are to minimize loss of life, injury, and property loss and damage in the maritime environment, minimize the risk to responders, optimize the use of resources, and remain a world leader in maritime SAR experience and effectiveness.

Members of the Defense Logistics Agency discussed preparations for what weather experts predict will be a busy hurricane season and the best ways to support whole-of-government partners during a virtual hurricane academics session May 25.

The event, now in its third year, covered topics like the National Response Framework, Agency Synchronization and Operations Center Current Operations Branch roles and processes, DLA expeditionary capabilities and lessons learned.

Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict 2022 will be the seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts 14 to 21 named storms. Between six and 10 of those storms could become hurricanes, with three to six possibly becoming a Category 3 storm or higher with winds over 111 mph.

There have been more storms than predicted for the last 40 years, said J3/5 Plans and Exercises Director Lew Sigmon.

“We need to be ready, so let’s review our operational processes now, think about how we work day-to-day, and who’s going to take over our responsibilities when [rapid deployment teams] get tagged to mobilize and support these hurricane response efforts,” Sigmon said to about 45 participants from the ASOC, DLA Rapid Deployment Teams and major subordinate commands.

Hurricane support is nothing new for DLA. The agency has provided hurricane support since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, making hurricane season one of the agency’s busier times of the year, he said. The ability to shift between combat operations and hurricane support will be important to the agency, he added.

There are direct links from lines of effort in DLA’s Strategic Plan to preparing for hurricane season, Sigmon said.

“Our number one line of effort and mantra is to support the warfighter, and how we’ll do that during hurricane season is going to be critical,” Sigmon said.

Hurricane support falls under the line of effort to support the nation.

“Capitalizing on our scope, scale and skills in acquisition, storage, distribution and surge capabilities, the nation has increasingly called upon DLA to provide whole-of-government support,” Sigmon said.

DLA’s support for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts are coordinated at the ASOC at Fort Belvoir, Va. Support is provided through Defense Support of Civil Authorities processes and execution orders created by the Office of the Secretary of Defense that outline leading military and federal agencies, typically Federal Emergency Management Agency and NORTHCOM.

DLA provides domestic and international disaster relief, especially through its partnership with FEMA, said Bob Gagnon, DLA’s liaison officer to FEMA. This support includes meals and water, medical supplies, power generators, tents, tarps, cots, fuel and staffing assistance.

Requests for DLA supplies and services enter the ASOC as work orders known as mission assignments that address short-term needs to save lives and protect property, Gagnon said.

“Mission assignments are not a surprise,” Gagnon said. “They’re pre-coordinated with myself and my counterparts at the major subordinate commands, and then we pass them through the ASOC to the tasked MSCs through their [command control centers] so everybody has full visibility of what’s coming.”

Support for fiscal 2021 storm support, which included the Texas winter storm and hurricanes Delta, Henri and Ida, cost $39.9 million. DLA Distribution Expeditionary support was $2.5 million. Commodities supplied included over 808,000 meals at $5.5 million, 126 leased generators at $6.1 million, and 752,000 gallons of fuel, he said.

Team Charleston officials conducted a Hurricane Exercise (HUREX) June 6 – 9 at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, forecasters are predicting above-average hurricane activity for 2022 with a likely range of 14 to 21 named storms.

The HUREX simulated the appropriate procedures needed to be taken by all base agencies in the event of a catastrophic storm.

“Every exercise is an opportunity to evaluate and improve our installation’s readiness and resiliency,” said Tech. Sgt. William Cleveland, 628 th Air Base Wing Inspector General Office NCO in charge of exercise plans. “The purpose behind this HUREX was to evaluate the base’s ability to prepare, respond and recover from our most likely natural disaster threat.”

Members of the 628 th Air Base Wing, 437 th Airlift Wing, 315 th Airlift Wing and several mission partners had their readiness and abilities put to the test as the HURCON levels changed throughout the exercise.

“With any natural disaster, unpredictability can be a cause for concern,” said Cleveland. “However, we have well trained professionals who care about and are invested in the overall success of Charleston’s response to the upcoming hurricane season. That commitment is what will ensure that we are ready.”

South Carolina residents can find more information about hurricane evacuation zones and their storm surge vulnerability on www.scemd.org

Joint Base Charleston members can stay up to date throughout the hurricane season by following our official social media accounts. Additional information is below to help Team Charleston stay prepared.

www.ready.gov

https://www.scemd.org/prepare/know-your-zone/

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-predicts-above-normal-2022-atlantic-hurricane-season#:~:text=NOAA’s%20outlook%20for%20the%202022,of%20a%20below%2Dnormal%20season

Team Tyndall has an integrated, multi-level approach when it comes to hurricane preparedness led by the 325th Fighter Wing plans and programs office and the 325th Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management flight.

The installation is conducting a comprehensive evaluation of policies and procedures to ensure information is current and accurate if Tyndall has to react to a severe weather situation. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season, June 1 to Nov. 30, is expected to have above normal storm expectations.

“As we have seen in the past, the worst can happen,” said Capt. Torrance Barach, 325th FW plans and programs chief. “Being prepared gives us the mobility and the freedom to respond to the units by making sure recall rosters and accountability procedures are organized, which is a great place to start in managing preparedness.”

Tyndall designed a “Hurricane Smart Book” which contains information from national agencies, base and local guidances as well as preparation resources. This allows Tyndall Airmen and their families access to checklists, procedures and tools necessary to make an emergency plan as well as build a hurricane preparedness kit. Kits should meet the basic needs of all members of the household to include spouses, children and pets, which are commonly forgotten in the preparation process.

“We have to assume that 70 percent of our personnel did not grow up in areas with hurricane experience,” said Maurice Spikes, 325th CES installation emergency manager. “Taking the time to prepare ahead of time is so important. Have an evacuation plan with a primary and an alternate location [and within a 350 mile radius] in opposite directions in case the storm changes course. Ensure you have access to communication and know where the Bay County [designated shelters-in-place] are.”

The Smart Book exists alongside Tyndall’s Installation Emergency Management Plan; a comprehensive collection of checklists and action items base leadership must accomplish when responding to various crises.

“You have to know what your plan is for when a hurricane happens again; how we are going to protect our planes, people and equipment,” said Tech. Sgt. Felipe Gonzalez, 325th CES noncommissioned officer in charge of emergency management. “The most important thing is knowing your people, where they are and who has the ability to support the mission in an emergency.”

The 325th CES emergency management flight advises Tyndall units what responses should be considered in the appropriate time frames needed for weather preparations as determined by historical data.

“We need to have an integrated response to come together and work together to secure the base and our people,” said Staff Sgt. Jeydi Delgado, 325th CES NCOIC of emergency management programs. “When we’re securing the base before a storm, no one knows a unit’s vulnerabilities and assets better than its people.”

The impacts of a hurricane are not new to Tyndall personnel after Hurricane Michael, but the base has taken lessons learned from 2018 to better prepare Airmen, families, units and assets for future storms. Tyndall will always remain vulnerable to severe weather due to its location, therefore ensuring the base itself and families are ready remains a commander priority.

“Sometimes it’s easy for us to compartmentalize our professional [lives] from our personal lives,” said Barach. “We have to pass down information to our dependents, make sure that they know how to use the Air Force Personnel Accountability and Assessment System, that Government Travel Cards are valid throughout the hurricane season and that we don’t forget pets.”

SUITLAND, MD—— U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC), a U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography command, confirmed iceberg A-74 (Fig. 1) split, or calved, into two icebergs—now identified as A-74A and A-74B—near Berkner Island in the Weddell Sea, June 7, 2022.

A-74A was centered at 76° 55′ South and 45° 54′ West , measuring 28 nautical miles on its longest axis and 18 nautical miles on its widest axis. A-74B was centered at 76° 45′ South and 44° 54′ West and measured 9 nautical miles on its longest axis and 4 nautical miles on its widest axis.

A-74 first calved from the Brunt Ice Shelf in March 2021 and has drifted 90 nautical miles westward in the 15 months since.

The calving event was first spotted by USNIC Analyst Katherine Quinn, and confirmed by USNIC Analyst Christopher Readinger using the Sentinel-1A image below.

Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant where they are originally sighted.

Quadrants are divided counter-clockwise in the following manner:

A = 0-90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea)

B = 90W-180 (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea)

C = 180-90E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkesland)

D = 90E-0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)

When first sighted, an iceberg’s point of origin is documented by USNIC. The letter of the quadrant, along with a sequential number, is assigned to the iceberg. For example, C-19 is sequentially the 19th iceberg tracked by USNIC in Antarctica between 180-90E (Quadrant C). Icebergs with letter suffixes have calved from already named icebergs, where the letters are added in sequential order. For example, C-19D is the 4th iceberg to calve off the original C-19 iceberg.

The U.S. National Ice Center is a multi-agency center operated by the Navy, NOAA, and Coast Guard and provides global to tactical scale ice and snow products, ice forecasting, and related environmental intelligence services for the United States government.

The U.S. National/Naval Ice Center is a subordinate command of U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command that directs and oversees more than 2,500 globally-distributed military and civilian personnel who collect, process and exploit environmental information to assist Fleet and Joint Commanders in all warfare areas to make better decisions, based on assured environmental information, faster than the adversary.

Iceberg positions are analyzed weekly and are available on the USNIC webpage at:

https://usicecenter.gov/Products/AntarcIcebergs

For more information, please contact:

U.S. National Ice Center

Command Duty Officer

E-mail: [email protected]

Voice: (301) 943-6977

Visit us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/usnatice

Hydropower, a clean, renewable and reliable energy source, just became safer for fish and more efficient at generating electricity, thanks to the new turbines at Ice Harbor Lock and Dam on the Snake River in southeast Washington.

On Feb. 17, the gantry crane at Ice Harbor hoisted 360 tons of turbine components, including an adjustable blade turbine runner, shaft, intermediate headcover and upper discharge ring insert, and carefully lowered them into their new home: the Unit 3 turbine pit in the Ice Harbor powerhouse.

This is the second of three advanced technology turbines that are scheduled to be installed at Ice Harbor. The first, a fixed blade turbine, was installed in 2018.

The turbines were designed to improve fish passage and include greaseless components and improved seal technology to reduce incidents of oil leaking into the river. On top of being better environmentally, projections indicate the new turbines are 3% to 4% more efficient at generating electricity.

The installation process for this new turbine is projected to take until the end of June, when it will go through final commissioning.

“We’re spending about four months getting everything ready, getting everything connected, checking systems individually before we actually run water through it,” Kevin Crum, project manager for the Walla Walla District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), said.

What is a turbine?

A turbine, or turbine unit, includes everything from the intake and control gates that guide water into the unit, to the runner blades pushed by the flowing water, to the machinery above the water that turns the motion into electricity. A turbine runner is the part most people associate with the word turbine, as it looks like a big propeller.

The development of new turbines included work, not just on the shape of the runner blade, but on the other components of the turbine unit as well.

“Down below the exit of the turbine, we shaped the exit conduits, which are called draft tubes. We did extensive work to make the flow more streamlined,” Crum said. “Any juvenile fish that are in that flow are getting pushed farther downstream than they were before. They’re less susceptible to birds and fish picking them off.”

Reinventing hydropower

The new turbines installed at Ice Harbor were designed to be safer for fish, reduce maintenance costs and increase power generation efficiency. The research and development started back around 1995, with the Turbine Survival Program, funded by the Bonneville Power Administration and part of the USACE Columbia River Fish Mitigation program.

The Turbine Survival Program sought to assess what factors lead to the injury of fish passing through a turbine unit, with the goal of developing operational and design improvements for turbines that would improve fish passage.

To collect data, studies were conducted using Sensor Fish developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Sensor Fish are small autonomous devices filled with sensors that, when released through a turbine unit, can measure the physical stressors that fish may experience while passing through the unit. Engineers used these devices to study factors like the rapid decreases in pressure within the turbine environment and the likelihood of a fish being struck by a runner blade.

Other studies were done using juvenile salmonids with balloons attached. For testing, these balloon-tagged fish were released into the turbine intake. Then, after they had passed the dam, the balloons inflated, bringing the fish to the surface of the river where they were picked up and examined by researchers in a boat.

Using the data collected from these and other studies, engineers were able to design new turbines that would be safer for fish.

“Probably one of the major components that came out of the Turbine Survival Program were the models, the physical hydraulic models we used to evaluate and actually observe what the flow looks like as it passes through the turbines,” Martin Ahmann, hydraulic engineer for the Walla Walla District, and the technical lead for the turbine replacement project, said. “We also developed a method of using small, neutrally-buoyant plastic beads that we can release into the model turbine. Then, using the high-speed digital cameras, we can see how those beads interact with the components of the turbines … we can see how a fish might interact with these components by observing these neutrally buoyant particles as they pass through.”

Once developed, a new turbine design is put though vigorous rounds of testing to determine if it meets operational and fish passage parameters. Testing is performed on a 1 to 25 scale model of the turbine, constructed specifically for testing purposes. One round of testing is done by the turbine manufacturer, in Ice Harbor’s case, Voith Hydro, who checks to see if the turbine operates well from a power generation standpoint. Next, the model is shipped to Vicksburg Mississippi, where the USACE Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC), conducts their own round of testing to see how the turbine operates from a fish passage standpoint.

Once testing is done, “we assess all the data we have, we look for the weaknesses and the strengths and we try to make improvements. Then we follow up with a new design iteration,” Ahmann said.

A turbine design can go through four or five design iterations before it is approved to be built full-scale and installed. After installation and commissioning, more testing is done to make sure the turbine meets expectations. For the fixed blade turbine, field tests indicated significant hydraulic improvements to the flow conditions, and biological testing using balloon tagged fish in October 2019 resulted in a 98.25% direct survival rate.

“It’s quite a team effort to go from a concept to having one installed like we’re seeing out at Ice Harbor,” Ahmann said.

Research for the turbine designs involved numerous federal agencies and organizations in the industry, from PNNL, to ERDC, to the Hydroelectric Design Center (HDC), USACE’s National Center for Expertise for hydroelectric and large pumping plant engineering services. Voith Hydro, in collaboration with the Corps of Engineers, developed and manufactured the designs for the Ice Harbor turbines. The effort also involved the Bonneville Power Administration’s economic expertise, and NOAA Fisheries’ knowledge of anadromous fish biology. And all of this is in addition to biologists, engineers, construction teams and contracting experts within both the Walla Walla and Portland districts of USACE.

Decades of research, development and collaboration have gone into the design of the new turbines.

“Ice Harbor and the other three other dams on the lower Snake River provide low-cost, carbon-free energy to the Pacific Northwest, and they played a major role in keeping the lights on during the winter storms of February 2021 and the heat dome event we experienced last June,” said Bill Leady, acting vice president for Generation and Asset Management at the Bonneville Power Administration. “Modernizing the equipment will benefit fish and Pacific Northwest residents well into the future.”

The history of the turbines

Ice Harbor Lock and Dam, located on the lower Snake River near Pasco, Washington, was the first of the lower Snake River dams to be constructed. The first three of its hydro-turbine units were brought online in 1961, with three additional units coming online in 1976.

In 2010, the Walla Walla District awarded a contract to Voith Hydro to design and supply one fixed blade turbine and two adjustable blade turbines at Ice Harbor. In 2016, a contract was awarded to Voith Hydro to install the three new turbines.

The first of the three new turbines, a fixed blade, was installed in the Ice Harbor powerhouse on June 8, 2018. This turbine runner was the first of its kind, designed by USACE personnel and Voith Hydro for power efficiency and to optimize the safety of fish navigating through Snake River dams.

Meanwhile in 2018, the Walla Walla District awarded a $321.3 million contract to Alstom Renewable US LLC, a General Electric Company, to design, manufacture and install 14 turbines at the McNary Lock and Dam, near Umatilla, Oregon. The 14 main unit turbines have been in operation for more than 62 years. They are projected to continue to operate on average for another seven years until the new turbines are manufactured and installed.

Looking to the future

This summer, Ice Harbor Unit 3 will be completed and functional. At that time, work on the third unit, Unit 1, will be able to begin. Unit 1 will also be an adjustable blade turbine.

Biological testing for Unit 3 is scheduled for early October. This will include Sensor Fish tests, as well as balloon-tag fish testing, where juvenile salmonids are released through the turbine unit and then evaluated for injury and survival.

And work is already well underway to design new turbines for McNary.

“We’re nearing the completion of our hydraulic design of the first adjustable blade runner of McNary. We’ll be starting that final iteration for the adjustable blade in April. So, in just a few weeks we’ll be starting the final design iteration for the adjustable blade runner. That will take us about a year, and then we’ll start the design of the fixed blade runner,” Ahmann said.

Turbine units are not something that can be manufactured in bulk. Each one is made for the conditions at a specific dam. While the turbine for Unit 1 at Ice Harbor will be the same as the one recently installed in Unit 3, that same turbine design would not operate well at McNary, or at any other dam.

“Even though we might not be able to take an exact replica of the Ice Harbor turbine unit and install it at another dam, we can certainly evaluate those characteristics of the turbine that are good and replicate those through this design process at other dams,” Ahmann said.

It is estimated that replacing all 14 turbines at McNary will take the next 10 to 15 years. Meanwhile, Portland District is moving forward with their own project: replacing the turbine units at John Day Lock and Dam, which was completed in 1971 and has a powerhouse with 16 turbine units.

All of these efforts are steadily reshaping and modernizing hydropower in the Pacific Northwest to be more efficient and safer for fish.