Devil’s Canyon on the Susitna River, one of North America’s most challenging and iconic whitewater runs, has been threatened with hydropower development and dreams of resurrecting this project persist. The Bureau of Reclamation originally looked at a project to dam the Susitna with a series of four dams: Devil’s Canyon, Vee, Watana and Denali. The Army Corps of Engineers were the next to take a look at things and explored options for a two-dam project. Shortly after the Army Corps of Engineers shelved plans for a project in the 1970’s, the Alaska Power Authority took up the cause for a two-dam 1620 MW hydroelectric project (FERC P-7114). The proposed project consisted of the Devil’s Canyon Dam, a 610-ft-high thin arch concrete dam with a 600 MW powerplant, and the Watana Dam, an 810-ft-high earthfill dam with a 1020 MW powerplant.

With costs for construction at $5 billion, and $132 million invested in studying the project, Alaska Power Authority formally withdrew their application on May 15, 1986 and the river continues to flow freely. In 2008 the state legislature began to formally discuss the project as an investment opportunity for the state’s oil revenues and legislation to study the project was introduced as HB336/S246. This legislation directs the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) to prepare a proposal for an “appropriately sized Susitna hydroelectric project.”