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Project 2105 License Group (2105LG) Approved Meeting Summary – November 25, 2002 |
Call to order: Bill Dennison, Plumas County Supervisor at 9 a.m.
Attendees: See Attachment 1 for list of attendees. Attendees approved the October 28, 2002 meeting summary.
Report from Facilitator Sub-Committee: Bill Dennison reported that the Facilitator Sub-Committee reviewed the qualifications and rates for three candidates and, based on her regional and local experience and her rate is recommending the collaborative hire Patti Kroen as our facilitator. Tom Jereb added that PG&E will finance the costs for Ms. Kroen’s services and has initially funded a contract for $50,000 that can be revisited if necessary. Ms. Kroen’s tasks were described as follows:
Develop agendas
Manage meetings to meet agenda objectives
Assist in the development of meeting summaries
Maintain a record of agreements and action items
Help the collaborative participants meet their goals
Maintain neutrality
Agreements
Accepted by consensus the Facilitator Committee’s recommendation to hire Ms. Kroen.
Meetings will be documented in summary format to include substantive discussion points, agreements made and action items identified.
Patti was introduced to facilitate the remainder of the meeting and made the following commitments to the 2105LG participants as an advocate for the collaborative process:
Uphold the established protocols and assist the group in abiding by them
Help manage time and stay within the allocated time period; if necessary continue issues to the next meeting
Track action items and objectives
In turn, she expects the group to:
Follow the protocols and understand that they are often in conflict with natural behavior
Come prepared and be succinct
Commit to and support the process
Be nice to each other
Remember that in a collaborative, no one gets everything they want.
The Facilitator reviewed the status of Project 2105 and reiterated that the Application was filed in October, which initiated a 60-day comment period. Comments are due December 23, 2002.
A draft protocol was prepared by the Protocols Sub-Committee and distributed to the participants in advance of the meeting for review. The group discussed the role of confidentiality in this process and agreed that the process is not confidential but there may be aspects of a settlement negotiation that demand participants to trust each other and not ‘try the issues’ in the media.
Agreements
Participants could educate their constituents on efforts of the collaborative to reach agreement and provide their own views but not represent the views of other stakeholders.
Any proposed press release will first be approved by the 2105LG.
After the participants have approved meeting summaries, the summaries can be distributed. This distribution protocol would also apply to other documents.
New participants would be provided with and expected to comply with the Protocols and violations of the protocols would be discussed within the group on a case-by-case basis.
Action Item 1: Mike Taylor of the Protocols Sub-Committee will draft additional language to revise the draft protocols to include an additional ‘not for attribution’ statement to be included under the personal conduct section of the protocols, and a discussion about the meeting summary/document distribution. Participants will review the revised protocol prior to the December 18th meeting and provide specific comments at the December 18th meeting.
Due Date: December 11, 2002
The group discussed a definition for consensus as an acceptance or agreement that the stakeholders “can live with it”. They discussed how a dissenting opinion would be handled and there was general agreement that one stakeholder should not be able to stop an agreement that was suitable to all other stakeholders. The group discussed the need for a dispute resolution process and some suggested this was assuming a negative outcome. Jerry Mensel will provide possible language to Mike Taylor regarding dispute resolution.
The Sub-committee distributed a vision statement in advance of the meeting for review. The group discussed the draft statement and after a few revisions agreed on the vision statement.
Goal and objective of the 2105LG is to achieve a settlement agreement.
The group might need to prioritize to determine what can be done in the limited time available.
Additional study requests should be reasonable and with the license deadline in mind.
The group approved the following vision statement:
“The goal of the Upper North Fork Feather River relicensing group is to identify and evaluate project impacts on affected social, economic, and natural resources, and develop and propose project conditions that equally consider the uses of the affected resources consistent with existing applicable laws and regulations as well as current and anticipated societal values.”
Scott Tu discussed temperature modeling activities conducted by PG&E since 1981 related to the North Fork Feather River, ranging from 1-D mathematical models used to develop the curtain wall concept to 3-D models currently under construction that will be used to evaluate flow conditions. He explained that output from the model designed to predict the thermocline in Lake Almanor fits well with observed temperature data and this 1-D model can be used with various inputs to evaluate the effects of different operational scenarios. Scott added that Hamilton Branch modeling is proceeding but no work is currently being done on Butt Valley. While different scenarios for water flow from Mt. Meadows will be considered, Scott did not feel it would be a large impact. The magnitude of that impact can be determined through sensitivity testing.
Lake Almanor Water Level and Flow Committee (LAWLAF)
A committee was formed to identify issues and scope related to water levels and flows downstream of the project and make recommendations to the full 2105LG for alternative scenarios to be fed into the models.
LAWLAF Committee:
Scott Lu, PG&E
Sharon Stohrer, SWRCB
Christi Goodman, Plumas County
To be named later, USFS
Jerry Mensel, CSPA
Robert Hughes, CDFG
Scheduled Meeting Date/Time: January 14, 9am – 2pm at USFS Office, Oroville
Stakeholder Preliminary Comments on PG&E Application
Some stakeholders were just starting their review so were not ready to share preliminary comments. Stakeholders offered the following preliminary comments and concerns:
Concern with how fast the Hamilton Branch Amendment is moving / inadequate time to do evaluations necessary
Consider agreement on recreation triggers to be improvement
Need to improve angling access
Concern that whitewater results were dismissed
Lake levels as an economic value (property values)
Erosion and wave crest analysis needs further study
Cultural resources and sensitive site constraints
Mercury and other metal concentrations in fish tissue/water quality
Operational effects on lake level (include structural integrity of facilities)
Need watershed management plan
Pursue cold water model for Butt Valley
Potential for fish passage
Unimpaired hydrology
Macroinvertebrates
Relationship between lake levels and staging/nesting habitat for waterfowl
Hydraulic operations model (water balance) for project-affected system
ESA constraints
Potential to reintroduce anadromous salmonids to upper watershed habitat (potential to coordinate with other processes)
Outline of Milestone Decisions
Wayne Dyok provided information about the FERC process and provided a potential relicensing schedule (Attachment 2). He indicated that settlement fits into the process in July 2003, which is not realistic so the group should target Fall 2003. Wayne noted that FERC has not made it a practice to grant any extension requests. Tom Jereb reported that PG&E hopes to have the Hamilton Branch draft application in January 2003 with a final amendment in mid-2003.
The group discussed the most efficient way to plan their time between now and the deadlines and considered use of the matrix that identifies ecosystem attributes or resources and drivers by month (distributed with October 28, 2002 meeting summary). The group identified the following issue areas: terrestrial issues/wetlands; cultural issues, water level/flows/diversions/water quality; recreation; water levels and recreation issues in both the reservoir and river; geomorphic and suggested that PG&E could provide resource specific presentations. The group suggested that the next meeting include a discussion of the resource/time matrix and a resource-specific presentation of the river ecology.
Agreements
Use sub-committees to help move issues to resolution. Subcommittees populated with technical expertise will be used to focus issues and possible solutions for recommendations to the full group.
Stakeholders are responsible for reading the documents – everyone needs to read the Project Resource Summary.
Agenda for Next Meeting: December 18, 2002
The group set the framework for the next two agendas. The following items are scheduled for discussion at the next meeting:
Review revisions to Protocol
Resource/Time Matrix Discussion
Resource-Specific Discussion – River Ecology
Adaptive Management Considerations
Schedule meetings for next 6 months
The following items are scheduled for discussion at the January 27th meeting:
Hamilton Branch
Additional Studies
Focus and provide priority and schedule for issues
Collaborative Name Discussion
Agreement
The group will be known as 2105 License Group or 2105LG
Attachment 1: List of Attendees
Bill Zemke PG&E wez2@pge.com
Patti Kroen Kroen pkroen@pacbell.net
Craig Bolger PG&E chb2@pge.com
Tom Jereb PG&E taj3@pge.com
Ken Kundargi DFG kkundargi@dfg.ca.gov
Janet Walther PG&E jmw3@pge.com
Mike Taylor USFS mftaylor@fs.fed.us
Mike Meinz DFG mmeinz@dfg.ca.gov
Robert Hughes DFG rwhughes@dfg.ca.gov
Kevin Lewis AW klewis@showorrst.net
Harry Williamson NPS harry_Williamson@nps.gov
Jerry Mensch CSPA jerrymen@innercite.com
Michael Condon USFS mcondon@fs.fed.us
Christi Goodman Plumas Co. clgpcpw2@psln.com
Tom Hunter Plumas Co. pcpw@psln.com
Eric Theiss NMFS eric.theiss@noaa.gov
John Mintz PG&E jsm9@pge.com
Wayne Dyok MWH wayne.m.dyok@mwhglobal.com
Stephen Reynolds CGS sdreynol@consrv.ca.gov
Steve Robinson MMC mmc@mtmeadows.org
Jeremy Peconom Honey Lake Maidu peconom1012@prodigy.net
Scott Tu PG&E sst3@pge.com
Mark HennellyCa. Waterfowl Assn mark_hennelly@calwaterfowl.org
Bob Baiocchi* Anglers Comm. Baiocchi@psln.com
Sharon Stohrer* SWRCB sstohrer@waterrights.swrcb.ca.gov
* Participated via teleconference
Attachment 2:
Upper North Fork Feather River Project
FERC Project 2105
Potential Relicensing schedule
2002
October 23-PG&E files Application for New License
October 29-FERC issues Tendering Notice Soliciting Additional Study Requests and establishing procedural schedule
October 29-FERC initiates Section 106 consultation with SHPO
November 25-PG&E meeting with stakeholders re Studies and Possible Settlement
December 18-PG&E Meeting with Stakeholders re Studies and Possible settlement
December 23- Additional Study Requests filed with FERC
December – FERC issues Acceptance or Deficiency Letter
2003
January –FERC Requests additional information
January 27-PG&E Meeting with Stakeholders re Studies and Possible Settlement
March-FERC issues Acceptance Letter
April-EC issues Scoping Document 1
May-FERC holds Scoping Meetings
July-FERC request additional information as needed
FERC issues Scoping Document 2
July FERC-issues Notice Application is Ready for Environmental Analysis and Request for Preliminary Terms and Conditions
August-PG&E files final amendments to the Application
2004
January FERC issues Draft Environmental Assessment
March-Initiation of 10(j) Process and Formal ESA consultation
July- FERC issues Final Environmental Assessment
October FERC issues Decision on Application