Hydropower Relicensing meeting for Falls Village & Bulls Bridge
Public Outreach Meetings:
December 4, 2000, Lee Kellogg Elementary School, Falls Village, CT
December 6, 2000, Northville Elementary School, New Milford, CT
December 7, 2000, First South Congregational Church, Hartford, CT
1 pm – 3 pm
December 5 and 6, 2000
8:30 am Meet at the Northeast Generations Services-CT Hydro Office
parking lot in New Milford and travel by bus to the facilities returning about
4 pm.
Dec. 5 trip will visit the Falls Village facilities and possibly the Bulls
Bridge.Contact Robert Gates of Northeast Generation Service by
Dec. 1 to confirm locations and your attendance. He can be reached by
email: Gates@nu.com"or 860-354-8840.
The purpose of these meeting is:
Site visit – inspect the Housatonic Project facilities, gain an understanding
of the operational characteristics of the Project, and discuss potential
licensing issues.
Formal Agency/public outreach meetings – receive input on the
environmental issues, take statements from experts and the public on
issues, identify those issues that require a detailed analysis, solicit all
available information, especially quantifiable data on the resources at
issue.
Marks New Stage in Ongoing Relicense Proceeding:
These scoping meetings kick off a new phase, the FERC stage,
in the ongoing relicense proceeding for the Falls Village and Bulls Bridge
hydropower plants as well as three more power facilities further
downstream on the Housatonic.
The public meetings provide an opportunity for the whitewater community
to lobby FERC staff to consider all values of the river in their environmental
analysis.
FERC needs to hear from the boating community the issues we want
analyzed:
Encourage FERC to consider a wide range of alternatives meeting
whitewater needs.
Avoid a fishing verses boating argument.
Focus on solutions rather than past problems.It’s extremely important for
members of the whitewater community to be present at the public
meetings.
We need to conduct ourselves in a professional manner.
Comments to make at Public Meetings:
-FERC must do an environmental impact study (EIS) rather than an
environmental assessment (EA)
-FERC must consider a range of alternatives for each hydropower facility
and corresponding river reaches balancing power and non-power uses of
Housatonic River.
-Alternatives must include objective environmental analysis of all river
uses particularly listed beneficial uses such as whitewater
-Whitewater Alternatives to consider:
Decommission Falls Village and/or Bulls Bridge power plants
Operational restrictions of Falls Village and Bulls Bridge based on inflows
(i.e., cease power generation when forebay inflows are equal to or greater
than boating flows in respective reaches on weekends and holidays)
All alternatives should include comparative economic analysis of power
and non-power uses of the Housatonic River
Written comments will be accepted by FERC through Sunday,
January 8, 2001.Comments should be
mailed to:David P. Boergers, Secretary, FERC, 888 First Avenue, NE,
Washington, DC 20426.
FERC regulations require that the original and eight copies be submitted
to FERC. All correspondence with FERC on this proceeding must clearly
show at the top of the first page “Housatonic River Project FERC No.
2576-023 and Falls Village Project FERC No. 2597-018”.
American Whitewater will be filing formal comments by January 8. We
encourage local paddling groups to coordinate with American Whitewater.
Please contact John Gangemi if you would like to assist with and sign on
to comments: phone/fax: 406-837-3155/3156;
Email: jgangemi@digisys.net