Dam Tailwaters - Hydro-Environmental Analysis: Freshwater Environments - page 499

Similarly, for hydropower facilities, a license is required from the FERC. As of July 2012, the
FERC database includes over 1000 of such permits that have been issued, beginning with Escondido
in 1924 to the Jennings Randolph project licensed in March 2012. Each of these is a 50-year license.
A variety of regulatory issues are associated with these licenses, as discussed in Martin et al. (2007).
Some of the license requirements include:

• 401 certiication: Under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, certiication (by the state or

an appropriate tribal authority) is a condition of any federal license that authorizes the
construction or operation of a project. The certiication is that the project will not result in
a violation of water quality standards.

• Section 18 of the Federal Power Act (Chapter 12 of “Federal Regulation and Development

of Power”) provides the requirement that ishways may be required as prescribed by the
secretary of the interior or the secretary of commerce.

• The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to ensure that their actions are not

likely to jeopardize the continued existence of federally listed threatened and endangered
species, or result in the destruction or adverse modiication of their designated critical
habitats.

Each of these requirements (and the results of environmental assessments or environmental
impact studies) may result in the speciication of certain conditions for the license, impacting, for
example, construction, maintenance, and operation. As an example, some of the license require-
ments for the Franklin Hydroelectric Project on the Little Tennessee River (No. 2603 for Duke
Energy Carolinas, LLC issued September 2011) are:

• To protect the aquatic resources in Lake Emory and the Little Tennessee River, the license

requires Duke to: (1) operate the project in a run-of-river mode; (2) monitor project opera-
tions as described in its Lake Level and Flow Management Plan (Addendum No. 1 to the
certiication); and (3) revise its Sediment Management Plan (Addendum No. 3 to the cer-
tiication) to include (a) provisions, when dredging, to minimize the impact of the project
drawdown and sediment removal on environmental resources; (b) provisions for evaluat-
ing downstream effects on aquatic resources; (c) best management practices for sediment
management; and (d) a schedule for implementation.

• To protect the aquatic resources in the Little Tennessee River, the license requires Duke to

release a minimum low of 309 cfs (the September median low) into the project tailrace
during reservoir maintenance or drawdown and reill periods.

• To enhance wood duck nesting at the project, the license requires Duke to install and main-

tain wood duck nesting boxes.

• For the continued protection and maintenance of Virginia spiraea and its habitat in the

project area, the license requires Duke to prepare a Virginia spiraea management plan.

Many of the speciied license requirements may be protective of ish, wildlife, cultural resources,
and recreation. In some cases though, the license requirements may restrict, by statement or omis-
sion, the operation of the facility, limiting the capability of the hydropower operators to alter
releases (such as, for example, to beneit downstream uses) because of license conditions (Peterson
et al. 2003).

18.3.2 w ater q uaLIty : p oInt or n onpoInt S ource ?
One of the interesting questions for dams and dam releases is whether or not they should be considered
point sources, and, as such, subject to permitting requirements under the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES permits) or for a “load allocation” as part of TMDL studies (under