[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 17 (Friday, January 26, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3840-3841]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-1242]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Project No. 12455-004]


Borough of Lehighton, PA; Notice of Application Tendered for 
Filing With the Commission, Soliciting Additional Study Requests, 
Intent To Waive Stage Two Pre-Filing Consultation Provisions and Post-
Filing Scoping, Establishing an Expedited Schedule for Licensing, and 
Establishing the Deadline for Submission of Final Amendments

January 22, 2007.
    Take notice that the following hydroelectric application has been 
filed with the Commission and is available for public inspection.
    a. Type of Application: Original License.
    b. Project No.: 12455-004.
    c. Date Filed: December 29, 2006.
    d. Applicant: Borough of Lehighton, Pennsylvania.
    e. Name of Project: Beltzville Hydroelectric Project.
    f. Location: The project would be connected to the U.S. Army Corps 
of Engineers Beltzville Dam, located on Pohopoco Creek, in the Borough 
of Lehighton, Carbon County, Pennsylvania.
    g. Filed Pursuant to: The Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 791 (a)-
825(r)
    h. Applicant Contact: Mr. John F. Hanosek, P.E., Borough Manager, 
P.O. Box 29, Municipal Building, Second and South Street, Lehighton, PA 
18235, (610) 377-4002.
    i. FERC Contact: Jack Hannula, (202) 502-8917 or 
[email protected].
    j. Cooperating agencies: We are asking Federal, State, local, and 
tribal agencies with jurisdiction and/or special expertise with respect 
to environmental issues to cooperate with us in the preparation of the 
environmental document. Agencies who would like to request cooperating 
status should follow the instructions for filing comments described in 
item l below.
    k. Pursuant to section 4.32(b)(7) of 18 CFR of the Commission's 
regulations, if any resource agency, Indian Tribe, or person believes 
that an additional scientific study should be conducted in order to 
form an adequate factual basis for a complete analysis of the 
application on its merits, the resource agency, Indian Tribe, or person 
must file a request for a study with the Commission not later than 60 
days from the date of filing of the application, and serve a copy of 
the request on the applicant.
    l. Deadline for filing additional study requests and requests for 
cooperating agency status: February 27, 2007.
    All documents (original and eight copies) should be filed with: 
Magalie R. Salas, Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 
First Street, NE., Washington, DC 20426.
    The Commission's Rules of Practice require all intervenors filing 
documents with the Commission to serve a copy of that document on each 
person 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.
    Additional study requests and requests for cooperating agency 
status may be filed electronically via the Internet in lieu of paper. 
The Commission strongly encourages electronic filings. See 18 CFR 
385.2001(a)(1)(iii) and the instructions on the Commission's Web site 
(http://www.ferc.gov) under the ``eFiling'' link.
    m. The application is not ready for environmental analysis at this 
time.
    n. The project would be located at the existing Corps of Engineers 
Beltzville Dam which is a 175-foot-high, 4,600-foot-long earth-fill dam 
with a 23-foot-high, 2,000-foot-long un-gated concrete spillway. The 
reservoir has 949 surface acres at a normal water surface elevation of 
628.0 feet, mean sea level (msl).
    The proposed Beltzville Hydroelectric Project would consist of: (1) 
A new, approximately 150-foot-long penstock connected to the downstream 
side of Beltsville Dam via an existing outlet conduit that would be 
modified to include a 78-inch diameter steel pipe liner, a new 78-inch 
butterfly valve, Y-branch, and 84-inch slide gate: (2) the penstock 
would lead to a new 60-foot-long, 30-foot-wide powerhouse which would 
contain two generating units, a 1,700 kilowatt (kW) unit and a 900 kW 
generating unit; and (3) a 300-foot-long, 12-kilovolt transmission 
line. The estimated average annual generation would be 9,470 megawatt 
hours (MWh). The project would be operated in a run-of-river mode.
    o. A copy of the application is available for review at the 
Commission in the Public Reference Room or may be viewed on the 
Commission's Web site at http://www.ferc.gov using the ``eLibrary'' 
link. Enter the docket number (P-12455) excluding the last three digits 
in the docket number field to access the document. For assistance, 
contact FERC Online Support at [email protected] or toll-

[[Page 3841]]

free at 1-866-208-3676, or for TTY, (202) 502-8659. A copy is also 
available for inspection and reproduction at the address in item h 
above.
    You may also register online at http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/esubscription.asp to be notified via e-mail of new filings and 
issuances related to this or other pending projects. For assistance, 
contact FERC Online Support.
    p. With this notice, we are initiating consultation with the 
Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO), as required by 
section 106, National Historic Preservation Act, and the regulations of 
the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 36 CFR 800.4.
    q. Waiver of Pre-filing Consultation: We intend to waive pre-filing 
consultation sections 4.38(c)(4-9) which require distribution and 
consultation on a draft license application.
    r. Expedited procedural schedule: We intend to use the pre-filing 
consultation that has occurred on this project as our National 
Environmental Policy Act scoping and issue a single environmental 
assessment rather than a draft and final EA. We intend to give at least 
30 days for entities to comment on the EA, and will consider all 
comments received on the EA before final action is taken on the 
application.
    r. Final Amendments: Final amendments to the application must be 
filed with the Commission no later than 30 days from the issuance date 
of the notice of ready for environmental analysis.

Magalie R. Salas,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. E7-1242 Filed 1-25-07; 8:45 am]
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