RJT> > For instance, I would like to install a small hydro-electric
RJT> > generator on a creek that passes thru my property where I live.
RJT> > The water management beuroacries are three levels make it so
RJT> > difficult that it is next to impossible, unless you grease
RJT> > their palms with extortion money under the pretense of fees, or
RJT> > give away part of your property to some stupid fart bug.
RJT> >
RJT> > That is government standing in the way of self-suffiency. And,
RJT> > of course. They the goal is to make as many as dependant...
I did what you propose some years back. One, I did it in Arkansas, which
has no building code. If you wanna live in it, they let you. Two, I had
a small creek which only drained about 300 acres of Ozark mtn side.  Any
impact it had on the ecosystem was trivial.  But, three, the slope and
the upland clearing for pasture made the creek quite variable. during a
hot dry summer, the creek would dry up entirely.. but then I had plenty
of solar power.  But, in 1980, we got 16 inches in a few days; it was
one of those "100 year" floods we seem to get so often these days.. it
turned my 5 meter diameter water wheel into kindling spread along two
miles of lower creek banks.
Before building, I had examined the creek banks to find signs of earlier
high water marks, and nothing like that had happened before or since. It
had put 8 foot of water in a town down river that had never been flooded
before.
Over the years many folks around abouts have asked me for opinions on a
site they owned.  None of these sites were really feasible.  The rivers
with enough water don't have enough fall, and the creeks with enough
fall don't have enough water.  I have 12 foot on a 72 foot run which
would fill an 8" well casing type pipe with water.  Fed to a breast
wheel it usually got me 300 watts from October thru June.
I chose a breast wheel because I planned on raising the dam to such a
height as to convert the wheel later to an overshot.
While a turbine would be more efficient, it would only be so at flow
rates that kept it full.  A water wheel has a far wider power curve, it
would work from 100 to 1500 watt output. Given the variability of most
creeks, that seems more practical.
I built the dam out of mortar and rocks; the flood peeled the top 6" of
rocks off, but the rest stayed intact.  You would do well to examine how
to shape the overflow spillway to dump on the far side away from your
hydro equipment.
Consider too the land basin; not long after I built, a retired doctor
bought much of it, had the woods all dozed for pasture, and exacerbated
the speed of runoff thru my land.
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