[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 216 (Wednesday, November 7, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55707-55708]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-24332]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Project No. 2883-009]


Notice of Scoping Meetings and Environmental Site Review and 
Soliciting Scoping Comments

    Take notice that the following hydroelectric application has been 
filed with the Commission and is available for public inspection.
    a. Type of Application: New Major License.
    b. Project No.: 2883-009.
    c. Date filed: May 30, 2018.
    d. Applicant: Aquenergy Systems, LLC.
    e. Name of Project: Fries Hydroelectric Project.
    f. Location: On the New River in the Town of Fries, Grayson County, 
Virginia. No federal lands are occupied by the project works or located 
within the project boundary.
    g. Filed Pursuant to: Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 791(a)-825(r).
    h. Applicant Contact: Ms. Beth E. Harris, P.E., Southeast Regional 
Manager, Enel Green Power North America, Inc., 11 Anderson Street, 
Piedmont, SC 29673, Phone: (864) 846-0042 ext. 100, Email: 
[email protected], or Mr. Kevin Webb, Hydro Licensing Manager, Enel 
Green Power North America, Inc., 100 Brickstone Square, Suite 300, 
Andover, MA 01810, Phone: (978) 935-6039, Email: [email protected].
    i. FERC Contact: Brandi Sangunett, Phone: 202-502-8393, Email: 
[email protected].
    j. Deadline for filing scoping comments: January 7, 2019.
    The Commission strongly encourages electronic filing. Please file 
motions to intervene and protests using the Commission's eFiling system 
at http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp. For assistance, please 
contact FERC Online Support at [email protected], (866) 208-
3676 (toll free), or (202) 502-8659 (TTY). In lieu of electronic 
filing, please send a paper copy to: Secretary, Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20426. The 
first page of any filing should include docket number P-2883-009.
    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

[[Page 55708]]

may affect the responsibilities of a particular resource agency, they 
must also serve a copy of the document on that resource agency.
    k. This application has been accepted, but is not ready for 
environmental analysis at this time.
    l. The existing Fries Hydroelectric Project (Fries Project) 
consists of: (1) A 41-foot-high, 610-foot-long rock masonry dam with a 
500-foot-long spillway; (2) an impoundment with an 88-acre surface area 
at the normal pool elevation (spillway crest elevation) of 2,188.27 
feet National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29); (3) an 
approximately 750-foot-long, 110-foot-wide intake canal with four 15.5-
foot-high, 6.5-foot-wide headgates; (4) a canal spillway consisting of 
10 stoplog bays totaling 47 feet in width; (5) two 12.5-foot-high, 5.0-
foot-wide canal gates; (6) a 28-foot-long, 10.5-square-foot concrete 
penstock to supply water to the unit 4 powerhouse; (7) a steel 
powerhouse that contains a single vertical Kaplan turbine with a 
capacity of 2.1 megawatts (MW) that discharges into a 180-foot-long, 
75-foot-wide, 12-foot-deep tailrace; (8) a masonry powerhouse that 
contains one vertical and two horizontal Francis turbines with a total 
capacity of 3.0 MW that discharges into a 180-foot-long, 120-foot-wide, 
12-foot-deep tailrace; (9) a 500-foot-long, 450-foot-wide bypassed 
reach that extends from the toe of the dam to the confluence with the 
tailraces; (10) a 567-foot-long, 13.2-kilovolt (kV) transmission line 
that runs from the steel powerhouse to the interconnection point with 
the grid; (11) a 130-foot-long transmission line that connects the 
masonry powerhouse to a 5,000 kilovolt-amp step-up transformer and an 
additional 323-foot-long, 13.2-kV transmission line leading from the 
transformer to the interconnection point; and (12) appurtenant 
facilities.
    Aquenergy is proposing two modifications to the existing Fries 
Project boundary. First, the project boundary upstream of the canal 
intake would be expanded to include all of Aquenergy's existing 
property on the north bank of the New River out to the right-of-way for 
Route 94 and upstream of the dam to encompass the impoundment access 
area. Second, Aquenergy's existing powerhouse access road easement 
between Route 94 and the masonry powerhouse would be included in the 
project boundary. As proposed, the project boundary would encompass 
5.34 acres of land.
    The Fries Project is operated in a run-of-river mode. For the 
period 2003 through 2016, the average annual generation at the Fries 
Project was 26,150 megawatt-hours.
    m. 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 website at http://www.ferc.gov using the ``eLibrary'' 
link. Enter the docket number excluding the last three digits in the 
docket number field to access the document. For assistance, contact 
FERC Online Support. 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 email of new filings and issuances 
related to this or other pending projects. For assistance, contact FERC 
Online Support.
    n. Scoping Process: The Commission intends to prepare an 
environmental assessment (EA) on the project in accordance with the 
National Environmental Policy Act. The EA will consider both site-
specific and cumulative environmental impacts and reasonable 
alternatives to the proposed action.

Scoping Meetings

    In addition to written comments solicited by this SD1, we will hold 
two public scoping meetings in the vicinity of the project. An evening 
meeting will focus on receiving input from the public, and a daytime 
meeting will focus on concerns of the resource agencies, NGO's, and 
Indian tribes. We invite all interested agencies, Indian tribes, NGOs, 
and individuals to attend one or both of the meetings to assist us in 
identifying the scope of environmental issues that should be analyzed 
in the EA. The times and locations of the meetings are as follows:

Public Scoping Meeting

    Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2018.
    Time: 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
    Place: Fries Community Center.
    Address: 316 W. Main Street, Fries, VA 24330.

Agency Scoping Meeting

    Date: Thursday, December 6, 2018.
    Time: 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
    Place: Fries Community Center.
    Address: 316 W. Main Street, Fries, VA 24330.
    Copies of the Scoping Document (SD1) outlining the subject areas to 
be addressed in the EA were distributed to the parties on the 
Commission's mailing list. Copies of the SD1 will be available at the 
scoping meeting or may be viewed on the web at http://www.ferc.gov 
using the ``eLibrary'' link (see item m above).

Environmental Site Review

    The Applicant and FERC staff will conduct a project Environmental 
Site Review beginning at 2 p.m. on December 5, 2018. All interested 
individuals, organizations, and agencies are invited to attend. All 
participants should meet at the Fries Hydropower Project, 616 W. Main 
Street, Fries, VA 24330. All participants are responsible for their own 
transportation to the site. Anyone with questions about the 
Environmental Site Review should contact Mr. Kevin Webb of Aquenergy 
Systems, LLC at (978) 935-6039 or [email protected]. Those 
individuals planning to participate in the Environmental Site Review 
should notify Mr. Webb of their intent, no later than November 30, 
2018.

Objectives

    At the scoping meetings, the staff will: (1) Summarize the 
environmental issues tentatively identified for analysis in the EA; (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 EA, including viewpoints in opposition to, or in 
support of, the staff's preliminary views; (4) determine the resource 
issues to be addressed in the EA; 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 are recorded by a stenographer and become part of the 
formal record of the Commission proceeding on the project.
    Individuals, organizations, and agencies with environmental 
expertise and concerns are encouraged to attend the meeting and to 
assist the staff in defining and clarifying the issues to be addressed 
in the EA.

    Dated: November 1, 2018.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2018-24332 Filed 11-6-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6717-01-P