Female American Eel and baby alewives chopped to pieces by
hydro-electric dam turbines in 2001 and 1999 -- Kennebec River drainage, Maine.
Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for holding this hearing today on Hydro Electric power and the
Hydroelectric Relicensing Title of the Chairman's draft legislation. I understand
that this title represents a significant departure from what this Subcommittee
agreed to before I joined the Energy and Commerce Committee. I am disappointed
that the draft abandons a bipartisan, negotiated title that required so
much effort and compromise.
Our experience in Maine suggests that the draft hydroelectric relicensing
title would not be consistent with our commitment to protect the public
interest. Maine has more than 31,000 miles of rivers and 111 hydro electric
dams. We also have a fishing industry employing thousands and a state with
some of the most spectacular wild rivers in the world.
This draft legislation attempts to rubber stamp licenses on the West's massive
hydro dams, but in the process it sweeps up eastern hydropower, which has
a different history. Some eastern dams have powered industry since the 18th
Century. They are generally quite small (78 percent of Maine's hydro dams
have generating capacities under 10 MW) and the power they produce is sometimes
of less economic value than the fisheries and natural resources that they
disrupt.
I support relicensing dams because hydroelectricity is a clean, renewable
source of power. But the law should acknowledge that damming our rivers
can inflict real and significant costs to our environment and our fisheries.
No matter where we live, we share a broad public interest in balancing the
need for hydro power with the health of our riparian ecosystems. The relicensing
process should not, as this draft does, weaken the ability of citizen groups
and federal agencies to participate in the administrative process.
The current system has had its successes. Due to the concerns of Maine citizens,
in 1997 FERC decided for the first time not to renew a dam license for the
Edwards Dam, which had blocked fish passage and reduced water quality on
the Kennebec River since 1837. The Commission concluded that the benefits
of removing this dam outweighed its usefulness. I was present at the breaching
of this dam in 1999. Within months, valuable striped bass were spawning
in the newly reopened river section, and in 2000 the State DEP declared
that the Kennebec had significantly improved water quality. Under the legislation
proposed today, the Edwards Dam would still be degrading 17 miles of the
Kennebec River.
Dam removal has only occurred in exceptional cases under the current relicensing
system. Dozens of Maine's hydro facilities have been relicensed over the
past decade, and the process has not significantly decreased hydro power
production in our state, but it has dramatically improved our fisheries
and riparian ecosystems.
Dam owners do not own our rivers. Rivers have been and must remain the waters
of the United States. The public interest must remain the priority when
we license private companies to rent our rivers to produce power.
Unfortunately, the bill before us today equates private interests with public
interests in the waters of the United States. First, it limits the public's
access to the relicensing process, ensuring that the private dam owner has
more opportunity to influence the administrative outcome than citizen users
of our rivers. Second, the bill increases FERC's authority while decreasing
the influence of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Third, it changes the standard
that dam owners must meet in order to protect the natural, required migratory
routes of fish species that are often depleted and sometimes endangered.
The dam owner no longer has to provide fish passage under this bill as long
as the "fish resource" can be protected by other means. This standard
would allow the dam owner to artificially stock the river if providing adequate
passage is too expensive.
I hope that during this hearing we will weigh the inevitable tension between
private interests and the common good, and I hope that this Subcommittee
will craft legislation that will maximize the long-term public value of
our rivers.
