[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 140 (Thursday, July 20, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 45047-45048]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-18302]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission


Notice of Scoping Meetings and Site Visits and Soliciting Scoping 
Comments

July 14, 2000.
    Take notice that the following hydroelectric application has been 
filed with the Commission and is available for public inspection:
    a. Type of Application: A New Major License.
    b. Project No.: 2042-013.
    c. Date filed: January 21, 2000.

[[Page 45048]]

    d. Applicant: Public Utility District No. 1 of Pend Oreille County.
    e. Name of Project: Box Canyon Hydroelectric Project.
    f. Location: On the Pend Oreille River, in Pend Oreille County, 
Washington and Bonner County, Idaho. About 709 acres within the project 
boundary are located on lands of the United States, including Kalispel 
Indian Reservation (493 acres), U.S. Forest Service Colville National 
Forest (182.93 aces), U.S. Department of Energy, Bonneville Power 
Administration (24.14 acres), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2.45 
acres), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (5.29 acres), and U.S. Bureau of 
Land Management (1.44 acres).
    g. Filed Pursuant to: Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. Secs. 791(a)-
825(r).
    h. Applicant Contact: Mr. Robert Geddes, Public Utility District 
No. 1 of Pend Oreille County, P.O. Box 190, Newport, WA 99156; (509) 
447-3137.
    i. FERC Contact: Mr. Timothy J. Welch, [email protected] or 
telephone (202) 219-2666.
    j. Deadline for filing scoping comments is 60 days from the date of 
this Notice.
    All documents (original and eight copies) should be filed with: 
David P. Boergers, Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 
First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20426.
    The Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure require all 
intervenors filing documents with the Commission to serve a copy of 
that document on each person whose name appears on the official service 
list for the project. Further, if an intervenor files comments or 
documents with the Commission relating to the merits of an issue that 
may affect the responsibilities of a particular resource agency, they 
must also serve a copy of the document on that resource agency.
    k. Status of environmental analysis: This application is not ready 
for environmental analysis at this time.
    l. Description of the Project: The Box Canyon Project is located in 
the northeast corner of Washington state in Pend Oreille County. The 
project dam is located at river mile 34.4 from the Pend Oreille River's 
confluence with the Columbia River. The site is 13 miles from the 
Canadian border, 14 miles from the Idaho border, and 90 miles north of 
city of Spokane, WA. The existing Box Canyon Project consists of: (1) 
46-foot-high, 160-foot-long reinforced concrete dam with integral 
spillway, (2) 217-foot-long, 35-foot-diameter diversion tunnel, (3) 
1,170-foot-long forebay channel, (4) auxiliary spillway, (5) powerhouse 
containing four generating units with a combined capacity of 72 MW, (6) 
8,850-acre reservoir at maximum operating pool elevation of 2030.6 
feet, and other associated facilities. PUD No. 1 operates the project 
in a run-of-river mode.
    PUD No. 1 proposes to upgrade all four turbines with new high 
efficiency, fish-friendly runners and to rewind the four generators to 
increase generating capacity to 90 MW. No new structures will be built 
and no construction in the river will be required. No operational 
changes will be needed although peak flow through each turbine will be 
increased from 6,850 cfs to 8,100 cfs which will ultimately result in 
an 8% increase in average annual energy output.
    m. Locations of the application: A copy of the application is 
available for inspection and reproduction at the Commission's Public 
Reference Room, located at 888 First Street, NE, Room 2A, Washington, 
D.C. 20246, or by calling (202) 208-1371. This filing may be viewed on 
the web at http://www.ferc.fed.us/online/rims.htm [or call (202) 208-
2222 for assistance]. A copy is also available for inspection and 
reproduction at the address in item h. above.
    n. Scoping Process.
    The Commission intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement 
(EIS) for the proposed relicensing of the Box Canyon Hydroelectric 
Project (FERC No. 2042-013) The EIS will consider both site-specific 
and cumulative environmental impacts and reasonable alternatives to the 
proposed action.

Scoping Meetings

    The Commission will hold two scoping meetings, one in the afternoon 
and one in the evening, to help identify the scope of the issues to be 
addressed in the EIS. The afternoon meeting will focus on resource 
agency concerns, while the evening scoping meeting is primarily for 
public input. All interested individuals, organizations and agencies 
are invited to attend one or both meetings, and to assist the staff in 
identifying the scope of the environmental issues that should be 
analyzed in the EIS. The times and locations of these meetings are as 
follows:
    Afternoon Meeting: August 14, 2000, 2:00 p.m., Airport Ramada Inn, 
Spokane International Airport, Spokane, WA, (509) 838-5211.
    Evening Meeting: August 16, 2000, 7:00 p.m., Newport High School, 
1400 West 5th Street, Newport, WA, (509) 447-3167.
    To help focus discussions, we will distribute a Scoping Document 
(SD1) outlining the subject areas to be addressed in the EIS, to 
parties on the Commission's mailing list. Copies of the SD1 also will 
be available at the scoping meetings.

Site Visit

    The PUD and the Commission staff will conduct a project site visit 
in two segments on August 15 and August 16, 2000. On the first day we 
will meet at 8:30 am in the parking lot of the Pend Oreille PUD No. 1 
at 130 North Washington St., Newport. The second day we will meet at 
Box Canyon Dam at 8:30 am. Site visitors will be transported by bus 
through the project area. If you would like to attend, please contact 
Mark Cauchy at (509) 447-9331 no later than August 8, 2000.

Objectives

    At the scoping meetings, the staff will: (1) Summarize the 
environmental issues tentatively identified for analysis in the EIS; 
(2) solicit from the meeting participants all available information, 
especially quantifiable data, on the resources at issue; (3) encourage 
statements from experts and the public on issues that should be 
analyzed in the EIS, including viewpoints in opposition to, or in 
support of, the staff's preliminary views; (4) determine the resource 
issues to be addressed in EIS; and (5) identify those issues that 
require a detailed analysis, as well as those issues that do not 
require a detailed analysis.

Procedures

    The meetings will be recorded by a stenographer and will become 
part of the formal record of the Commission's proceedings for this 
project.
    Individuals, organizations and agencies with environmental 
expertise and concerns are encouraged to attend the meetings to assist 
the staff in defining and clarifying the issues to be addressed in the 
EIS.

Linwood A. Watson, Jr.,
Acting Secretary.
[FR Doc. 00-18302 Filed 7-19-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-M