Dispute Panel Finds Merced Irrigation District Must Study Salmon and Steelhead Within Relicensing

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Dispute Panel Finds Merced Irrigation District Must Study Salmon and Steelhead Within Relicensing

By Chris Shutes, FERC Projects Director

December 2, 2009 -- In two documents issued today, a three-person study dispute panel appointed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that Commission staff erred in limiting the scope for study in the relicensing of the Merced River Hydroelectric Project (FERC #2179).

The panel consisted of representatives of FERC, National Marine Fisheries Service (disputing agency), and the U.S. Forest Service (neutral party). A joint report was issued by the panel members from FERC and USFS; an independent report was issued by the panel member from NMFS.

Merced Irrigation District, operator of the project, had maintained in its proposed study plan that studies should not be conducted of project effects on salmon and steelhead downstream of its Crocker-Huffman Diversion Dam, which the District uses to provide water for irrigation. Conservation Groups and Resource Agencies vigorously disagreed in multiple filings. FERC staff, in its Study Plan Determination issued September 14, 2009, agreed with the District. Mandatory conditioning agencies National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and State Water Resources Control Board filed formal disputes, as allowed by FERC’s Integrated Licensing Process.

As reported previously on the CSPA website, a formal study dispute meeting was conducted by the appointed panel in Sacramento on November 17. Subsequent to the meeting, CSPA and others filed comments to the panel and to FERC on disputed studies and the policy issues raised in staff’s Study Plan Determination.

The report issued today by the panelist from NMFS largely agrees with the positions laid out by CSPA and its allies.

Even the report issued by the panelists from FERC and the Forest Service found many areas of agreement. This latter report, states in perhaps its most essential finding:

“Commission staff’s initial conclusion that there is no nexus to the 19.5-miles between Crocker-Huffman diversion dam (RM 52) and Shaffer Bridge (RM 32.5) appears to have been reached prematurely and is not consistent with the baseline condition as presented at the technical conference or in the record. There is adequate information in the record to show that the Merced River Hydroelectric Project, via storage and releases at New Exchequer dam, directly affects downstream hydrology and the flow dependent resources more so than Commission staff initially concluded. Therefore, the Panel recommends that the scope of certain Panel supported studies extend downstream from Crocker-Huffman diversion dam (RM 52) to the compliance point at Shaffer Bridge (RM 32.5). At a minimum, the proposal to move the compliance point 34-miles upstream from Shaffer Bridge (RM 32.5) to immediately below McSwain dam (RM 56.1) could directly affect flow conditions and other resources (fish and riparian habitat, water quality, etc.) directly tied to flows. To reach conclusions without the benefit of some of the proposed studies would yield a minimal record from which to conduct assessments of alternative operating scenarios compared to the baseline condition established by currently licensed project operations downstream to Shaffer Bridge.”