20171010Comment.PDF

Comments On
Case Number IPC-E-16-32,Idaho Power Application for Determination of Hells Canyon Relicensing Cost
Submitted By
Northwest Resource Information Center,Ed Chaney,Director
October 10,2017
Northwest Resource Information Center (NRIC)is an intervener in relicensing proceedings for the Idaho
Power Company (IPC)Hells Canyon complex of dams on the middle Snake River.
NRIC urges the Public Utilities Commission to deny the IPC application for determination of Hells Canyon
Relicensing Cost pending a line-by-line audit of the purported costs and a publicly reviewable
determination that such costs:
1]Were incurred in furtherance of meeting IPC’s legal obligations under the Federal Power Act,and
related federal and state environmental laws,to mitigate the environmental/economic damage that
would occur under its proposed new license;
2]Were not incurred as part of IPC’s blatant attempts to evade that duty and/or to delay relicensing
proceedings in order to continue reaping the economic rewards of continuing the enormous ongoing
unmitigated damage under the current license.
IPC is notorious for abusing the monopoly privileges granted under the Federal Power Act with total
disregard for the resulting ecological and economic damage to the public at large.
In 1955 the Federal Power Commission,now Federal Energy Commission (FERC),issued Idaho
Power Company a license to construct and operate the Hells Canyon Hydroelectric Project on the
middle Snake River.
A free river,free land,a monopoly and a guaranteed return-on-investment license to print money
were not sufficient incentives for IPC to operate in the public interest.To maximize revenue the
company gambled on a controversial,high-risk experimental fish passage system with deliberate
disregard for the likely damage to the public.FERC,characteristically acting as the utility’s business
agent,agreed.The experiment failed,totally,as authoritatively predicted.
Anadromous salmon and steelhead produced in the vast Snake River Basin above the project were
extirpated.It was one of the 20th Century’s greatest,totally avoidable,ecological and economic
disasters.The damage extended down the Snake and Columbia Rivers and thousands of miles along
the Pacific coast.It continues today.
To date there has been no in-kind,in-place mitigation for the loss of fish and the concomitant
ecological,economic,social damage.FERC eventually approved building hatcheries to produce
salmon and steelhead for release far outside the project area,and in numbers that are a small fraction
of the production potential lost to the project.
The 1955 license expired in 2005.This created opportunity to bring the Hells Canyon Project into the
21st Century.Relicensing provides an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partially mitigate the damage
that would continue under a new license.
Federal courts have held that relicensing is a “new commitment”of the subject public resource—in this
case the middle Snake River and surrounding lands.Relicensing is intended to strike a new balance
between power and non-power values,giving each equal consideration,and equitable treatment,
under today’s conditions and values.
Since the original license was issued,numerous other environmental protection laws that apply to the
Hells Canyon complex of dams were enacted.E.g.,the Northwest Power Act of 1980 also imposes the
substantive obligation to adequately protect,mitigate,and enhance fish and wildlife,including related
spawning grounds and habitat,affected by hydroelectric facilities in a manner that provides equitable
treatment for fish and power.
The 1955 license provided IPC cover to continue the enormous unmitigated damage pending
relicensing.True to form,when the 1955 license expired in 2005,the company doubled down on its
fanatical obsession with maintaining the status quo,i.e.,maximize revenue for the company with
ruthless disregard for the damage to the general public.
IPC is notorious for using its monopoly power to politically corrupt and subvert environmental
protection/mitigation provisions of the Act and related state and federal laws.NRIC has observed this
first hand for decades.This perspective is not unique.See,for example,A Little Dam Problem,by former
Idaho Attorney General and state Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones,which chronicles IPC’s political
machinations vis-à-vis the Snake River adjudication,incorporated into these comments by reference.
A more contemporary example is the company’s ongoing scurrilous campaign of lies to frighten
credulous Idaho irrigators into believing the State of Oregon proposes to reintroduce endangered
species of salmon and steelhead into a few small tributaries that drain into the Hells Canyon project
area.1 IPC and its shills falsely claim this could cost irrigators a billion or more dollars.This is STOP for
IPC.Governor Otter and IPC’s faithful hand puppets in the Idaho Legislature eagerly jumped on the
bandwagon of lies in a joint effort to subvert Oregon’s authority under the Clean Water Act.
It is testimony to IPC’s greed that the company would fight Oregon’s extremely modest proposal to
obtain token mitigation for billions of dollars in damage that would continue under a new license,the
cost of which would get lost in the rounding errors of IPC’s annual revenues.
Idaho Governor Otter and the Idaho Legislature are co-conspirators in Idaho Power Company’s fanatical
zeal to resist providing even token mitigation for the enormous ecological and economic damage that
would continue under its proposed new license.
Now comes the company before the Idaho Public Utilities Commission asking it to approve making
ratepayers pay the bill for the company’s scofflaw behavior.This,in addition to the many hundreds of
millions,probably billions,of dollars in unfulfilled mitigation it has extorted at public expense to date.
NRIC urges the Commission,as the sole remaining protector of the public interest,to deny the
company’s request pending the audit described above.
1 Oregon has proposed no such thing.Oregon law actually provides that Idaho Power Company would identify the
stocks of fish proposed for reintroduction.PC has known that from the outset,of course.
Diane Holt
From:Ed Chaney <[e-mail]>
Sent:Wednesday,October 11,2017 8:26 AM
To:Front;Diane Holt
Subject:IPC-E-1 6-32
Attachments:IPC comments.docx
I’ve been unable to submit the attached comments using the online form.
Ed Chaney
2811 West State Street
Eagle,Idaho 83616
208.939.0714
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Re:Idaho Power Company
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