New Approach May Help Defuse Contentious Relicensing Process

Washington Water Power Co. isn’t the only Northwest utility relicensing dams on the region’s rivers.

In the next decade, more than a dozen licenses - some covering more than one dam - come before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for renewal.

Projects involved range in size from barely three megawatts to the massive dams in Hells Canyon on the Snake River.

Relicensing will be simple for some, difficult for others, and outright contentious in at least one instance - the fight shaping up between Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs over three dams on the Deschutes River.

Whatever their environmental drawbacks, dams still provide cheap power that license holders want to hang onto, even if meeting the demands of conservationists and others increases energy costs.

At the Moyie Dam in Idaho’s Boundary County, for example, the Bonners Ferry Electric Department will Mary McGown, conservation director for idaho Rivers United. No one knows what electricity might cost in five years, she said.

Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids cost $165 million to construct in 1951 and 1958, respectively. They can generate 790 megawatts of electricity at less than one cent per kilowatt-hour.

LaBolle said $24 million has been committed just to relicensing. Changes to the structures and their operations will add more cost.

And the relicensing process can be contentious. Conservationists, Indian tribes, recreation interests and landowners often demand changes utilities find unacceptable.

The license Tacoma City Light holds on the Cushman Dam in Western Washington is still being contested - 23 years after expiration.

Dams operated by Montana Power Co. and Puget Sound Energy have also been ensnared in protracted disputes.

“We’re surrounded by examples of how relicensing typically goes,” said Labolle. “The process is set up for failure right from the start.”

The biggest problem, he said, is the term of the licenses, typically 50 years.

With a one-time opportunity to amend license conditions, challengers dig in their heels. And projects coming up for renewal in the next decade date to a period when few questions were asked about environmental impacts.

Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids, for example, halted the migrations of bull trout from Lake Pend Oreille upstream into spawning grounds.

Knowing troublesome environmental issues lay ahead, and seizing on a FERC initiative to relieve a backlog of relicensing cases, LaBolle said WWP decided in 1993 to look for a new approach.

The result: A quest for a “living license” that allows for ongoing adjustments in response to changes in the environment, public demands or new knowledge.

“The concept should live forever, but the term of the license would be fixed,” LaBolle said.

In another innovation, WWP in 1995 convened the first of a series of meetings with representatives from 40 organizations with their own stakes in the dams and the Clark Fork.

The goal, LaBolle said, is an agreement among all parties that can be presented to FERC with the license applications, due in February 1999.

FERC itself is participating, having prepared an analysis of relicensing impacts required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

LaBolle said the agency normally does not get involved until late in the process, after battle lines are drawn and compromise is less likely.

Ann Miles, the FERC official responsible for relicensing dams in the West, said similar initiatives on smaller projects have worked well.

When other interested parties get a meaningful role in the process, she said, they have a vested interest in its success.

Miles said the commission supports settlements. “We’re certainly hopeful,” she said.

Other participants are also optimistic, although they caution that the real bargaining lies ahead.

Joe DosSantos is the fisheries and wildlife biologist for the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes in Montana.

The tribes waged a prolonged legal fight with Montana Power over the Kerr Dam, ultimately gaining major concessions from the company.

DosSantos said WWP invited the Salish, Kootenai and other tribes to take part in the relicensing process from the outset and is paying for surveys of cultural sites now under way by tribal members, he said.

He predicted a crunch when the utility and other interests start discussing the way the dams are used to meet WWP demand peaks.

“Peaking plants are bad for the environment,” DosSantos said.

He said restoration of bull trout runs is the tribes’ primary objective, but the practicality of that goal may be daunting.

“I don’t know if we can piece that population back together,” DosSantos said. “We have severed its habitat.”

Trout Unlimited, an early partner in the relicensing process, is also focused on fish.

The organization’s Missoula representative, Bruce Farling, said dam bypass is the most desirable way to restore runs of bull and cutthroat trout, but fish interests may have to settle for a contribution to enhance habitat upstream of the dams.

Some changes in dam operations may help resolve problems with water temperature and dissolved gas, he added.

Mona Janopaul, a conservation counsel for Trout Unlimited based in Arlington, Va., said WWP demonstrated its commitment to a comprehensive resolution of relicensing issues when officials asked that the Noxon Rapids license be shortened by four years so its expiration would coincide with that of Cabinet Gorge.

“That was definitely a major sacrifice,” she said.

Janopaul said she was also impressed with the relationships the utility had established with the groups summoned to work on relicensing, particularly with the tribes.

WWP also had compiled much of the scientific material that would be needed for good decision-making, she said.

Such information can take years to accumulate, Janopaul said, and utilities who get started late on relicensing are frequently frustrated when they can’t proceed because they have done little of the groundwork.

She noted WWP is funding a $25,000 study by a Trout Unlimited specialist in bull trout.

She said WWP also made a key concession early in the consultation process by agreeing to prepare a “loss statement” that will use predam and present-day conditions to establish environmental and other benchmarks.

No other utility has been so conciliatory, she said. “So far, they have met every test.”

LaBolle said there are financial reasons to pursue a flexible license instead of one that tries to impose comprehensive and potentially expensive conditions up front.

Gradual implementation of whatever new requirements are attached to the license will allow WWP to spread its cost, he said.

LaBolle said conservationists and others also have motivation to remain involved. If a new license is not issued on time, the old licenses are renewed for one-year periods.

In the meantime, no environmental work is started, and a generation could lose its chance to enjoy a rehabilitated resource.

LaBolle said that should not happen on the Clark Fork because WWP has agreed to implement whatever pieces of the final licensing application the parties sign off on ahead of time. The risk of FERC seeking changes in those provisions is small, he said.

So far, LaBolle added, WWP has kept financial issues off the table to assure deliberations address the concerns of all parties without the inhibitions money might cause.

But at some point dollars will have to be introduced to the mix, he said.

Looking toward the future, LaBolle said he expects some conflict, but like Miles he hopes those involved in the collaborative process will be sufficiently committed to its success to seek solutions.

WWP wants as many of those groups as possible to continue on as part of the living license process, he said, adding that many in the utility industry are watching to see if the Clark Fork initiative can succeed.

“What we’re shooting for is very ambitious,” LaBolle said. “It still is fraught with lots of challenges.”

, DataTimes