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The effort to restart the Fort Dodge Hydroelectric Dam has been stopped by the federal government.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has refused to issue the license that is needed to generate any power at the dormant dam.

In a six-page ruling, the commission members wrote that they were rejecting the license application from Fort Dodge Hydroelectric Development Co. because the company’s plan would not address safety problems.

That decision effectively killed the power generation plan that was approved by the voters in a 2005 referendum. That vote gave the city the power to borrow up to $7 million for the project.

Last year Mayor Terry Lutz wrote to the commission and asked it to reject the license after studies revealed that cranking up the dam once again would be a money-losing venture. But city officials said Friday they’ll move ahead with repairs to the dam, and they haven’t ruled out some smaller effort to make electricity there.

‘‘This kind of proves the fact that you couldn’t do it as conceived by Fort Dodge Hydro,’’ Councilman Matt Bemrich said.

Lutz said the federal action spares the city from paying the company another $600,000 on top of the the $195,000 already paid. He said the company’s $795,000 fee was based on securing the license. Now that the company has no chance of getting the license, it won’t be paid another cent.

‘‘We do not owe them the money,’’ Lutz said.

The city government has sued the company to try to get the $195,000 back. No hearings have been held on that lawsuit yet.

Councilman Don Wilson was the lone elected official who considered the ruling a setback.

‘‘I think it’s pretty sad,’’ he said. ‘‘It looks like the city intervened on this.’’

‘‘The will of the voters was to have this thing going,’’ he said. ‘‘I just feel that the city put a real stop to this through the mayor.’’

He said Lutz persuaded the City Council to hire Stanley Consultants of Des Moines to do two additional studies of the dam which raised questions about the feasibility of the project. He added that Lutz wrote to the commission, asking it to reject the license, without the council’s approval.

‘‘It’s unfortunate that Don feels that way,’’ Lutz said. ‘‘Don has been privy to all of the information the council has regarding the technical and financial analysis. I think it’s just another example of Don’s tactics of trying to discredit everything that the council is trying to do in moving the city forward.’’

 

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