California’s Cape Horn Mill proposal would generate 40 kW from irrigation water before returning it to Boardman Canal
For decades, the Boardman Canal has conveyed water through the Sierra Nevada foothills area near Colfax, flowing silently across the land for irrigation purposes.
On May 26, 2026, an individual by the name of Joshua Klein filed a notice with the federal regulatory body with a suggestion that would make him stand out with a proposal to divert water from the same canal, pass it through a 10-inch pipe, have it run a 40-kilowatt turbine, and then discharge the entire volume of water back into the Boardman Canal. No water usage. No diversion of any river. Only production of power through existing flow.
This proposed project, dubbed the Cape Horn Mill, poses a question that requires serious contemplation.
The application submitted by him to the FERC on May 18, 2026 states that the plant’s estimated production capacity amounts to 280 megawatt hours per year.
A canal, a pipe, and a turbine: How Cape Horn Mill would work
The engineering is very simple. The water will flow from the Boardman Canal to the 10-inch pipe, where it will feed one small turbine, which will produce 40 kilowatts maximum, and then return to the canal. No water diversion and consumption here. The canal will still fulfill its usual function of transporting water for agriculture and generating electricity with the help of the pipe and turbine.
According to Klein, Cape Horn Mill’s location is located at Cape Horn Road, Colfax, Placer County, California. The application submitted by him to the FERC on May 18, 2026 states that the plant’s estimated production capacity amounts to 280 megawatt hours per year.
This is quite a modest figure. This is, however, the issue that does not matter much. The matter lies in its simplicity. There will be no new dams and reservoirs built, except for the pipe and the turbine.
What makes it a ‘qualifying conduit’—and why that matters legally
Under Section 30 of the Federal Power Act, a hydropower project is eligible for a non-licensing path if four distinct conditions are satisfied. The water conveyance has to be a man-made conduit, a canal, pipeline, aqueduct, flume, or a similar facility used primarily for agricultural, municipal, or industrial purposes, rather than for power production. The project uses only the hydroelectric potential of a privately owned conduit. The installed capacity is limited to 40 megawatts. And finally, the hydropower plant has not been licensed nor exempted from licensing prior to August 9, 2013.
The preliminary determination issued by the FERC staff on May 22, 2026, found that Cape Horn Mill satisfied all of these requirements. Hence, there is no need to license or even obtain exemption from licensing the project.
With a generation capacity of only 40 kilowatts, Cape Horn Mill surpasses the 40 megawatts cap by a factor of one thousand. This approach saves both the trouble and cost of obtaining a license, thus making the possibilities of conduit hydroelectricity available to individual property owners and small-scale developers.
Cape Horn’s long history with water and energy
The very name of Cape Horn itself holds much significance in this regard. In 1865-1866, the Central Pacific Railroad constructed a railroad roadbed through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains above the American River Canyon, just east of Colfax—perhaps one of the more challenging areas to construct the first transcontinental railroad. This rock formation became a tourist site where passengers on the train could stop and have a look at the top of the canyon.
“Cape Horn Mill” reflects the same layers of history—a place that was historically associated with people using their ingenuity in dealing with a challenging terrain. Blasting a railroad roadbed out of rock in the 1860s; harnessing electricity from a flowing canal in the 2020s. The spirit is unmistakably the same.
The Boardman Canal is part of the same long history. This agricultural conduit has been serving Colfax for generations and makes it a good candidate for conduit hydropower.
Small hydro, big idea: The promise of conduit power
Conduit hydro takes advantage of water that has energy stored within it from its movement. The movement is already being used to get the water through pipes and channels built to transfer the water for purposes other than generating electricity. The water is going somewhere.
In contrast to traditional hydropower plants, conduit plants need not create any new dams or river diversions, hence there is no ecological disturbance.
At 280 megawatt-hours per year, Cape Horn Mill could power roughly 25 to 30 average California homes. Small on its own, but the model is replicable. California has thousands of agricultural canals, and each one represents a potential conduit project. The comparison to the larger dams that face more problems can be made: On the Eel River, PG&E has suggested the quick removal of Cape Horn Dam and Scott Dam, which prevent salmon and steelhead from reaching their spawning areas and have become unaffordable to maintain. Conduit hydro is an altogether different way of doing things.
What is next for the Cape Horn Mill
The public comment and intervention period ended on June 22, 2026, as reported in the Federal Register – Cape Horn Mill proposal. FERC will consider any successful challenges to the preliminary qualifying determination before issuing a final decision.
Since there will be no real challenges from the regulatory agency, the Cape Horn Mill project will continue to develop even without securing any federal licensing, which is the main purpose of the conduit licensing process. The schedule for construction and funding has yet to be revealed. The next step to look out for is the final decision from the FERC.
The proposed Cape Horn Mill project can be seen within the scope of this larger discussion of harnessing the existing hydropower capacity of our current water transport systems. Today, thousands of channels, conduits, and aqueducts transport huge volumes of water in the Western regions of the country but don’t produce one watt of electricity.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.
