From the 10/28/98 Kern Valley Sun:

STAFF REPORT
Kern Valley Sun

Citing inadequate consideration for the economic value of recreation, and the shrouded process by which the $2.5 million trout trust fund was established, the Kernville Chamber of Commerce, American Whitewater Association and Friends of the River and possibly other groups will appeal the Forest Service's revised license conditions for Kern River No. 3 powerplant.

Kern County has also joined the fray, sending a letter of support along with the appeal, criticizing the Forest Service's dubious process for arriving at its decisions, which essentially give the first 300 cfs of river flow to Southern California Edison for operating the nearly 80-year old, 36.2 megawatt capacity powerplant.

"They didn't provide any documentation of how they got there," said Ted James, Kern County Planning Director. "A lot of this is related to degrees of compliance: Did the Forest Service do a thorough job of looking at (the value of recreation)? A lot of local residents said 'No.'"

The KR3 appeal will be sent by the Thursday deadline to Michael Dombeck, Forest Service chief in Washington, D.C. Within 15 days, the appellants and the Forest Service will meet for informal settlement talks. If that avenue proves fruitless, said Richard Roos-Collins, attorney for the appellants, the appeal will then be carried to the licensing authority, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Roos-Collins expects FERC to incorporate the new Forest Service conditions into the KR3 license, which will expire Dec. 31, 2026, in early 1999.

"It appears that they (Forest Service) have violated the Forest Service plan and the Federal Power Act, for that matter," said Roos-Collins. "The flows (from 1,000 cfs to 2,000 cfs from April to August) are not adequate to protect the local community and boating interests."

Procedural issues in the license are also being appealed, he said, particularly the "closed door requirement" that led to the $2.5 million trust fund, designed to restore the Kern River rainbow trout.

If the Forest Service and FERC don't amend the licens, the issue will then be taken before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, said Roos-Collins. He anticipated that lawsuit, which will be consolidated by one already filed with the court, could be heard as early as next spring.

Hydropower may be cheap. But licensing powerplants isn't.

With eight years since Southern California Edison filed for a new license on the Kern River No. 3 powerplant, hundreds of meetings and conversations and a file five feet thick, and appeals and the possibility of lawsuits, it doesn't appear that the current process for relicensing has exactly been a success.

Forest Service headquarters staff couldn't agree more. Previously, people from the local forests did all the negotiating. Now, the Forest Service has formed the National Hydropower Assistance Team, with $10 million in funding, to provide guidance on powerplant relicensings.

"What happened with KR3 won't be typical from here on out," said Walter Dortch, acting team leader. "It's a new way of doing business in terms of hydropower on national forest lands."

The timing couldn't be better. In California alone, there are 37 hydro project licenses on national forest lands expiring in 1999; 48 expired licenses to renegotiate over the next 10 years.

Among the responsibilities of the Hydropower Assistance Team will be to figure out a good way to assess the economic value of recreation. "We really don't have a good methodology for stipulating a minimum flow for recreation and putting cost/benefit dollar figures on that," Dortch said. "We hope, under the initiative, to have a national forum in place that will include that issue more aggressively, especially since we recognize that FERC tends to undervalue non-power resources."

Big utility companies will most likely find it harder going with this team than with the staff from individual national forests. Dortch said that PGE and Edison are known for being "particularly adversarial and reluctant to consider alternative operating conditions."

Edison has reason to be satisfied with the current license, but still expressed reservations. "They were not what we recommended, but take into account what we suggested," Nino Mascolo, Edison legal counsel, said.

Dortch sounded apologetic that KR3's relicensing snarls couldn't have been straightened out by the national team, and he said that the current license conditions, which essentially grant Edison all or most of the first 300 cfs of Kern River water, are unlikely to be changed by FERC.

Other Forest Service areas may fare better in the future, since the team is urging FERC to issue "adaptive licenses" with if/then clauses to make future changes for unforeseen recreational needs that may emerge.