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CSPA intervenes in lawsuits against FERC
CSPA and five other organizations have intervened in two lawsuits against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) concerning FERC’s jurisdiction over La Grange Dam on the Tuolumne River. The lawsuits contest FERC’s July 19, 2013 Order on La Grange, and FERC’s earlier Order of December 18, 2012, that require Turlock Irrigation District (TID) to initiate…
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CSPA and Coalition Seek Equal Protection for Fish
Many owners of hydroelectric projects use jurisdictional uncertainty to avoid improving conditions for fish. Operators of power projects that also deliver water for irrigation or drinking water deny responsibility for streamflows if they can peg a reach of stream to “water supply” instead of hydropower. Even if operators produce power while carrying out the primary…
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CSPA and Coalition Press for Upper Yuba Improvements
CSPA and the Foothills Water Network coalition filed 100 pages of comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the FERC relicensing of the Yuba-Bear and Drum-Spaulding hydroelectric projects. The comments, filed August 22, 2013, culminate 5 years of work in seeking flow and other improvements in upper Yuba, Bear River, and West Placer watersheds.…
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State Water Board Certification Affirms CSPA’s 10-year Advocacy on Butte Creek
The State Water Resources Control Board has issued a draft Water Quality Certification for the relicensing of the DeSabla – Centerville hydroelectric project on Butte Creek. The draft Certification requires Pacific Gas & Electric Company to construct a water temperature reduction device at a project reservoir, and then to stop diverting water from the Lower…
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CSPA and conservation allies fight for fish passage past Tuolumne River dams
For the past five years, CSPA and allied conservation groups have been stymied in efforts to require study of fish passage in important hydropower relicensings in California. Licensees on the Merced and Tuolumne rivers have argued that their own agricultural irrigation diversions dams downstream of the huge dams that store water for these diversions were…
