Condit Dam Removal Condit Dam Removal - Access Washington

Condit Dam Hydroelectric Project
Final Supplemental EIS
agency or organization was that, from their perspective, the long-term and overall benefits would
outweigh the short-term impacts.
In a declaratory order issued December 21, 2001, FERC determined that the
amendment/settlement application is in essence an application to surrender the existing license to
operate the dam with a future effective date, and would be treated as such. Thus, the surrender
alternative, reached through settlement negotiations, became the proposal before FERC. A
NEPA SEIS was prepared by FERC to augment the October 1996 FEIS. The June 2002 FSFEIS
assessed the effects associated with approval and implementation of the Settlement Agreement,
including staff-identified modifications, as well as other surrender alternatives, including project
retirement without dam removal.
In its declaratory order, FERC noted that it sees no statutory barrier to deferring the processing
of a timely-filed relicense (previously this was referred to as a “new license”) application while it
considers an alternative proposal reached through settlement negotiations. Therefore, if the
surrender is not granted, or is granted and not accepted by PacifiCorp, it is possible that the
relicensing proceeding might resume. In order to save any additional time and effort that might
be required if this occurs, the FSFEIS also provided updated data related to the relicense
proposals presented in the 1996 FEIS. Rather than increasing the term of the license, FERC has
granted year-by-year extensions.
Between November 16, 2004 and February 8, 2005, the parties to the Settlement Agreement all
signed an MOA modifying the Condit Hydroelectric Project Settlement Agreement. That MOA
modifies the Settlement Agreement by changing the implementation date from 2006 to 2008;
changing the $2,000,000 cap on mitigation costs to $5,300,000; and changing the total cost cap
from $17,150,000 to $20,450,000. PacifiCorp then filed an application with FERC for
amendment of decommissioning and request for continued abeyance of decommissioning and
licensing proceedings on February 25, 2005.
2.3 NEED FOR STATE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Ecology is both the Lead Agency for SEPA and the regulatory decisionmaker for a portion of the
permits that require SEPA documentation to support permit decisions. In December 2001,
during the time that FERC was developing their FSFEIS, Ecology initiated an evaluation of
SEPA procedural requirements relative to the removal of the Condit Dam, and the extent to
which the NEPA process adequately covered issues that needed to be addressed under SEPA,
including those raised during the SEPA public scoping process conducted by Ecology in late
2001. Based on that evaluation, Ecology determined that the NEPA documents were not
adequate to meet all requirements of SEPA, a SEPA SEIS would be required, and the preparation
of this SEPA SEIS was initiated.
Pursuant to Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 197-11-620, the SEPA SEIS focuses on
issues not adequately covered in the FERC FEIS or the FSFEIS. A number of items have been
included because some SEPA requirements differ from those of NEPA. Also, the FERC
documents did not provide adequate information for State decisions. In other cases, the SEPA
requirements demanded more detailed description of actions that would cause impacts; therefore,
the SEPA SEIS evaluates potential impacts related to details of the project that were provided
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