Abstract
We analyzed United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) documents prepared for 29 recently licensed hydropower projects and created two novel datasets to improve understanding of the environmental study life cycle, defined here as the process that begins with an environmental study being requested by a hydropower stakeholder or regulator, and ends with the study either being rejected or approved/conducted. Our two datasets consisted of summaries of information taken from (1), study determination letters prepared by FERC for 23 projects that were using the integrated licensing process, and (2), environmental study submittals and issuances tracked and attributed to seven projects using the FERC record. Our objective was to use the two resulting environmental life cycle datasets to understand which types of environmental studies are approved, rejected, and implemented during FERC licensing, and how consistently those types of studies are required across multiple hydropower projects. We matched the requested studies to a set of 61 river function indicators in eight categories and found that studies related to the category of biota and biodiversity were requested most often across all 29 projects. Within that category, studies related to river function indicators of presence, absence, detection of species and habitat/critical habitat were the most important to stakeholders, based on the relative number of studies requested. The study approval, rejection, and request rates were similar within each dataset, although the 23 projects with study determination letters had many rejected studies, whereas the dataset created from the seven projects had very few rejected studies.
Highlights
The Energy Information Agency projects that renewable hydropower will continue to provide a significant proportion (~18%) of electricity in the United States (US) through2050 [1]
We found that a total of 520 studies were requested across the 23 integrated licensing process (ILP) projects
Studies classified in the BB category were the most frequently disputed, followed by studies classified in the RC category (Figure 3)
Summary
The Energy Information Agency projects that renewable hydropower will continue to provide a significant proportion (~18%) of electricity in the United States (US) through2050 [1]. Many US hydropower projects are undergoing relicensing by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and a variety of new hydropower projects have been proposed to help generate electricity with fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The FERC is the agency responsible for licensing non-federal hydropower projects and oversees approximately 55% of all hydropower facilities in the US [2]. Act of 1986 requires FERC to give equal consideration to the protection and enhancement of, and mitigation of damage to, wildlife, environmental quality, and recreational opportunity during the licensing process [3]. A variety of factors are associated with the licensing timeline length, but in general, projects with increased environmental complexity—i.e., projects with significant environmental effects, including projects with multiple facilities or dams, endangered species, water quality issues, and/or projects that have not been relicensed since the passage of environmental
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