Recent FERC filings reveal new details

     Several new facts and attitudes have emerged in recent documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Kilarc-Cow Creek License Surrender Application and the ensuing environmental review undertaken by the FERC.  As part of the review process FERC representatives spent the week of Oct. 19-23, 2009 in the area, holding two public scoping meetings and a tour of the Kilarc and Cow Creek power plant facilities on Old Cow and South Cow Creeks near Whitmore and Millville.

     After the agency scoping meeting on Oct. 22, several individuals filed comments with the FERC that criticized agency personnel for not giving adequate consideration to the alternatives to decommissioning the two hydroelectric plants proposed by Davis Hydro, LLC and Evergreen Shasta Power, LLC.  Both entities have proposed to take over operation of the power plants and to mitigate the effects of diverting water on local fish populations by habitat enhancement projects. 

     One of the individuals who took the agencies to task was Maggie Trevelyan of Whitmore, who wrote, “Not one of the agencies, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, nor the California Department of Fish and Game, had the decency to respond in any manner to the ideas put forth the previous three days. . . . This complete disregard for the community . . . complete disregard for the Davis Hydro and Evergreen Shasta ideas at the meeting was insulting to all the work done by all parties.  They show no interest in ideas to save the fish, only in being right.  They didn’t want to talk about solutions, or having their God-like authority questioned.”

   On Dec. 10, the California Department of Fish and Game filed a response to those comments that not only clearly stated the Department’s objections to both alternatives, but referred directly to the seldom discussed but largest stumbling block to continued power generation at the two small hydroelectric plants—the demand by the resource agencies that much less water be diverted from the streams in the future than is currently diverted by PG&E.  And without water to turn the Pelton Wheels, much less power can be produced.

     The CDFG letter says, “PG&E would have likely had increased minimum instream flow (MIF) requirements under a new license in order to adequately protect, mitigate for damages to, and enhance the fish and wildlife resources for the Project.  These new requirements were part of PG&E’s determination that decommissioning was a viable and cost-effective alternative to relicensing.  Neither of the proposed Alternatives provides increased flow in the bypass reaches.  An economic analysis to demonstrate how either Alternative would be self-sustaining under increased flow conditions should be presented.”

     Of Davis Hydro’s plan to use the Kilarc Canal as a steelhead hatchery, with the young fish released directly into the bypass reach of Old Cow Creek, the CDFG letter says, “The proposed breeding, return system, and other components of their fish restoration proposal are untested and are unlike anything utilized in successful fish culture or restoration operations, and therefore cannot be supported by the Department as mitigation for the Project.”

     Of Evergreen Shasta Power’s proposal to improve fish passage, spawning and rearing habitat in Hooten Gulch and South Cow Creek, the CDFG letter notes that “Hooten Gulch lacks the complexity (i.e. sinuosity, cover, riffle, run and pool sequences, etc.) found in a perennial stream. . . . [and] when the natural hydrograph is returned to South Cow Creek [by decommissioning the Cow Creek Powerhouse facilities and diversion, as described in the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding between PG&E and the resource agencies] there will be exceptional habitat for steelhead migration, spawning and rearing throughout the reach.”

     For its part, Pacific Gas and Electric Company indicated that, contrary to the views expressed by the CDFG, the resource agencies demand for expensive mitigations such as increased minimum instream flows did not play an essential role in their decision to decommission rather than relicense the Kilarc-Cow Creek Project. In a response to the FERC’s request for detailed information about how PG&E determined that destroying the two hydro plants would be more cost-effective than relicensing them, company representatives wrote, “At the time PG&E made its decision not to relicense the Project, PG&E had not received from resource agencies the specific resource enhancement measures proposed for inclusion in a new license. However, PG&E did perform a general economic analysis based on the company’s prior relicensing experience, preliminary discussions with the agencies, and certain project-specific assumptions. The methods, calculations, and results of the economic analysis are proprietary to PG&E.”

     But to the entities planning to take over operation of the two hydroelectric facilities (if allowed by the FERC to do so) knowing exactly what minimum instream flows the agencies plan to demand under a new license will be crucial information, and Evergreen Shasta Power shot back an immediate response to the CDFG comments.  They agreed that an economic analysis of project sustainability under increased instream flow conditions should be conducted and requested that “CDFG and the other resource agencies should be directed to provide information . . . on the specific minimum instream flows that they would have demanded under a new license for the Kilarc-Cow Creek Project, along with a detailed explanation of the justification for those flows and a quantification of the fishery benefits expected from any increase, including references to prior studies and field work.”

     The CDFG letter also says “the Department supports a new Abbott Ditch Diversion, at the historic location as documented in the 1969 Cow Creek Adjudication . . .approximately 3.5 miles downstream of PG&E’s current diversion.”  It also “encourages the FERC staff to evaluate the Abbott Ditch Diversion . . . separate from the Evergreen Shasta Power alternative” to ensure that the Abbott Ditch Users will receive appropriate mitigation for the potential loss of their irrigation water if the Cow Creek power plant is decommissioned. 

     Eric Poole, one of the Abbott Ditch Users, takes issue with several of the CDFG’s assertions.  “The CDFG’s proposal to simply construct a new diversion on South Cow Creek belies multiple contradictions and complexities:  1. Details of this plan are not evident anywhere in the CDFG filings to date. How would this construction effort be paid for? How would it be permitted? Who would perform the studies necessary to justify a new diversion in the midst of their foreseen “exceptional habitat for steelhead migration, spawning, and rearing?”  In the absence of scientific data and solid analysis, how can common sense support the notion that destroying a diversion in use today is worthwhile when it causes the construction of a new diversion downstream of the original?” 

     Poole continues, “There is no “historical” diversion point in South Cow Creek that has served the Abbott Ditch Users. The Adjudication provides in its Special Provisions section on page 20, paragraph 27 that the Abbott Ditch is entitled to divert 13.13 cubic feet per second from the natural flow of the east channel of South Cow Creek at a point designated on the SWRCB map as diversion 73. Further, the Adjudication provides ‘…that the diversion works under this right may be extended to control and divert all flows to which the shareholders are entitled occurring in either the east or the west channels of South Cow Creek.’ Interpretations of these provisions from the Adjudication vary widely, from PG&E’s claim that this means the Abbott Ditch should divert from below the confluence of South Cow Creek with Hooten Gulch, to the CDFG claim that the newly constructed diversion should be placed at Sec. 6 T31N R1W which is a point not on South Cow Creek at all.”

     On another front in the battle for Kilarc, Sierra Pacific Industries, which owns the land surrounding the Kilarc canal, reservoir and picnic area as well as its access road, has decided to back Evergreen Shasta Power’s attempt to acquire and operate the Kilarc-Cow Creek hydroelectric project.  In a letter dated Dec. 28, 2009 Sierra Pacific’s M. D. Emmerson writes “SPI is in full support of the Shasta County and Evergreen Shasta Power Alternative to retain the facilities for power production and recreation.  SPI has determined that the Kilarc reservoir is not only an important asset to Shasta County and the Community of Whitmore; it remains a valuable body of water for fire suppression purposes for our adjoining 45,000 acres of timber lands and dwellings in the Whitmore area.”