New Savannah Bluff Lock & Dam has potential for redevelopment as a for-profit hydropower project, according to a Texas company that won a federal permit to explore such a venture.

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Hydro Green Energy won a permit to study New Savannah Bluff Lock & Dam. The dam's potential as a source of renewable energy could breathe new life into the structure in disrepair.

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Hydro Green Energy, based in Houston, applied last year to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for authority to install seven turbines that could produce up to 8.75 megawatts of power from the existing flow of water through the 74-year-old dam.

The permit program, authorized under the Federal Power Act, allows private companies to take control of vacant or under-utilized dams to create renewable energy.

Hydro Green's permit is for a feasibility study, and does not allow any construction without permission from the site's owner.

The dam has been the center of controversy for more than a decade -- and its potential as a hydropower project adds yet a new wrinkle to its uncertain future.

Its owner, the Army Corps of Engineers, proposed in 1999 that it be demolished because it no longer serves commercial navigation -- the purpose for which it was built.

Local governments and industries that rely on the dam's consistent pool of water later agreed to assume ownership of the project, but only if Congress finances a $22 million renovation that was to include a $7 million fish ladder.

So far, those funds have not been committed and local governments refuse to take title to the site.

The dam itself is falling further into disrepair.

This year, federal agencies evaluating plans to deepen Savannah Harbor re-proposed razing the dam, saying its absence would allow migrating fish better upstream access and help mitigate environmental damage to coastal areas.

According to Hydro Green's Web site, the company holds patents to low-impact, hydrokinetic turbines that can be added to existing dams. It already operates one such project in Hastings, Minn., and has plans for several others where permits have been obtained.

Potential sites to deploy new turbines are under study at 32 locations in 15 states, according to company officials, who declined to discuss further details of the Augusta project because of its uncertain political status.

Even if a feasibility study concluded New Savannah Bluff would be suitable for hydropower production, it would still require renovation and congressional action -- and a resolution to the stalemate between the corps and the local government consortium.

"Right now, it is still authorized as a federal navigation project and that has not changed," said corps spokesman Billy Birdwell.

A second company, Free Flow Power Corporation of Gloucester, Mass., also filed an application last year for the Augusta site. Since there were multiple applicants, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission used a lottery process to determine a winner and awarded the permit to Hydro Green Energy.

Private sector interest in the dam is nothing new. In 1999, under a different set of laws, three other companies explored similar projects. One of them, Georgia-based Thomas Brothers Hydro, estimated at the time the dam could produce up to $739,000 a year in hydroelectric revenues.