Article from Public News Service.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2015-07-22/water/environmental-recreation-groups-oppose-dam-legislation/a47259-1
Suzanne Potter, Public News Service – CA
July 22, 2015
Environmentalists and outdoor recreation enthusiasts in the California Hydropower Reform Coalition are banding together to oppose a bill that would make the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the lead agency in relicensing hydropower dams.
The bill before the House Energy and Commerce Committee would give FERC the power to speed up the process and overrule the concerns of the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and California State Water Resource Control Board.
Chris Shutes, FERC project director for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said the bill promotes power generation at the expense of environment, recreation and local concerns.
“The people who are in charge of fish and land management would have to have their requirements approved by an entity whose main function is to approve energy projects,” he said.
The bill’s authors say it is designed to speed up a relicensing process for existing hydropower dams that can take eight to 10 years. They estimate that 250 dams will need to be relicensed in the next decade. California has dozens of hydropower facilities on rivers that include the Tuolumne, Merced, Kern and Feather Rivers on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
According to the environmental advocacy group American Rivers, the relicensing process only happens every 30 to 50 years – so it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to force private dam operators to upgrade their facilities with clean water, recreation and fish and wildlife in mind.
Shutes said the bill would add very little hydropower to the equation because most of America’s rivers suitable for dams already have been harnessed.
“Its goal, really, is not to create more energy,” he said. “It’s to get a better deal for the energy providers who already have projects.”
The California Hydropower Reform Coalition would like the bill to be pulled so negotiations can resume with the National Hydropower Association on the best way to improve America’s dams while restoring river flow and wildlife habitat, improving passage for fish and maintaining recreation sites.
Details of the bill are online at energy.senate.gov
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