[env-trinity] WATER POLLUTION Ruling would NOT exempt dams from standards — greens

Wed Mar 13 10:06:03 PDT 2019

Very misleading piece except for the last two sentences. Hoopa's petition responded to the 2008 Agreement in Principle and the 2010 Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement's scheme of indefinite delay of relicensing and resulting enrichment for PacifiCorp (about $27 million per year). The Water Board did not need 10 years of analysis time for a section 401 certification; by agreement, they were not doing anything on the 401 application. KHSA parties unreasonably hoped that Congress would specially authorize dam removal on the Klamath and appropriate $970 million for the linked KBRA. Obviously that wasn't likely and didn't happen. In 2016, eight years after the AIP, the KHSA parties conceded their error and amended the KHSA to create the Klamath River Renewal Corp. process using existing FERC authority. Now some of the groups that sided with PacifiCorp's desire for delay are asking for rehearing by the unanimous panel of judges. We'll see what happens.

The court in the Hoopa case focused on language in the KHSA  which said: "PacifiCorp’s FERC Project No. 2082... water quality certifications under Section 401 of the CWA and review under CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act], will be held in abeyance during the Interim Period under this Settlement. PacifiCorp shall withdraw and re-file its applications for Section 401 certifications as necessary to avoid the certifications being deemed waived under the CWA during the Interim Period."  See KHSA at 42.

This provision applied only to PacifiCorp's application, not to the KRRC's separate 401 application. The court relied on more than the one-year period allowed in 401. The court said "California and Oregon’s deliberate and contractual idleness defies this requirement [that they act within a reasonable time]. By shelving water quality certifications, the states usurp FERC’s control over whether and when a federal license will issue." There's nothing similar to that with the KRRC--no idleness by SWRCB, no contract to hold the application in abeyance.

Hoopa's case does affect PacifiCorp's relicensing application if FERC won't approve the KRRC's plans and relicensing is reactivated. In that event, FERC must act because the 401 cert is waived. Thus the fall-back to the KRRC process (which would be a return to relicensing and imposition of the volitional fish passage conditions on PacifiCorp, which will force PacifiCorp to remove the dams) will move more swiftly because of Hoopa's case. We cannot yet know if the KRRC process will succeed.

With respect to other projects with long-delayed applications, our case could have effects. Many stalled projects already have mandatory federal sec. 4(e) and sec. 18 conditions (just as PacifiCorp's relicensing had). I'm not aware that any have "contractual idleness" like there was under the KHSA. So we do not know whether FERC will find waiver. At least two applicants have already claimed that SWRCB waived 401 authority.

Tom

On 3/13/2019 8:30 AM, Tom Stokely wrote:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060127065/print

WATER POLLUTION
Ruling would exempt dams from standards — greens

Jeremy P. Jacobs<https://www.eenews.net/staff/Jeremy_P_Jacobs>, E&E News reporter

Greenwire: Tuesday, March 12, 2019[PacifiCorp’s Iron Gate Dam]

PacifiCorp's Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath River in Northern California.  Jeremy P. Jacobs/E&E News

Environmental groups yesterday asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that struck down part of a high-profile removal plan for four dams in California and Oregon, saying it set a precedent that would exempt dozens of dams nationwide from meeting water quality standards.

If the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stands, they wrote, "dozens of dams that are undergoing licensing would be exempted from compliance with water quality standards for the next 30- to 50-years."

The complicated case concerns four dams on the lower Klamath River in southern Oregon and Northern California owned by Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp.

In 2010, California, Oregon, the utility, farmers and most of the tribes involved reached an agreement to tear down the dams in what would be the country's largest dam removal project. The dams have caused threatened salmon populations to plummet (Greenwire<https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060051348>, March 13, 2017).

However, one tribe in the area did not sign: the Hoopa Valley.

The tribe also wants the dams taken out. But instead of joining the agreement, it challenged a complicated aspect of dam relicensing.

Under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, states have authority to certify that projects such as dams or natural gas pipelines meet water quality standards before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reviews their licensing application.

States are generally given a one-year window to complete that review. But for the Klamath dams, PacifiCorp engaged in a common practice: It withdrew and resubmitted applications every year, starting the one-year timeline over again.

The D.C. Circuit said the practice is an end run around the law's requirements and holds "federal licensing hostage."

"Such an arrangement does not exploit a statutory loophole," Senior Judge David Sentelle wrote for the three-judge panel, "it serves to circumvent a congressionally granted authority over licensing, conditioning, and developing of a hydropower project."

Sentelle noted there were 43 licensing applications before FERC at the time of briefing in the case, and 27 were using the withdrawal-and-resubmit strategy. Four of them have been doing it for more than a decade (Greenwire<https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060118637/>, Jan. 25).

But the environmental groups — American Rivers, California Trout and Trout Unlimited — said the practice is critical to give states enough time to ensure dams and other projects adequately protect water quality.

"The holding would effectively exempt dozen of dams undergoing licensing from compliance with water quality standards," they wrote<https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/03/12/document_gw_04.pdf>, "and it would have the same effect on an unknown number of other federal actions, thus raising an exceptionally important question."

Further, they noted the decision has already been highlighted by some of the project owners Sentelle referenced in urging FERC to move ahead with their pending applications before a state finishes its water quality review.

Industry players have criticized withdrawal-and-resubmit as allowing states to indefinitely block their projects. The Trump administration has signaled it is considering actions to limit it.

The environmental groups are seeking a rehearing of the same three-judge panel or en banc, meaning before all of the D.C. Circuit's judges. Such rehearing requests are rarely granted.

Sentelle, in his opinion, took some steps to limit the scope of the decision to the Klamath dams.

"This case presents the set of facts in which a licensee entered a written agreement with the reviewing states to delay water quality certification," he wrote. "PacifiCorp's withdrawals-and-resubmissions were not just similar requests, they were not new requests at all."

Twitter: @GreenwireJeremy<https://twitter.com/GreenwireJeremy> Email: jjacobs at eenews.net<mailto:jjacobs at eenews.net>

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