Principle Power Seeks $1.5M

I just love to be the guy that told you “I told you so”:
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) ? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has rejected a request by a California hydroelectric company for a preliminary permit application to build multiple small hydroelectric power plants along the McKenzie River.

Principle Power Hydro wanted preliminary approval to explore the feasibility of building up to nine plants from Scott Creek to Vida at an estimated cost of $6.3 million.

FERC’s rejection cited flaws in the application.

“The letter we sent indicates that the preliminary permit request was deficient and didn’t conform to our standards,” said Celeste Miller, a FERC spokeswoman.

The company has 30 days from the Feb. 8 rejection to appeal but has no time limit to file a new application.

Principle Power is considering whether to reapply, said Alla Weinstein, Principle Power’s CEO, adding that she found the rejection strange.

“It’s a preliminary application to put a stake in the ground and tell people that we are assessing that particular area,” she said.

The actual license application usually comes when all the detailed information is provided. The application described the proposed project generally as eight or nine stand-alone facilities, consisting of small diversion weirs, along with penstocks, canals, powerhouses and an energy transmission system.

But it failed to meet FERC’s requirement for detailed information about all project facilities, including the composition and size of structures, surface area and storage capacity of reservoirs and length and voltage of transmission lines.

FERC also found the company’s project map to be inadequate. It illustrated the stretch of the McKenzie where the company might put facilities, but didn’t meet FERC’s requirement to specify the exact locations.

In addition, the application cited Vida, Nimrod, Finn Rock, Blue River, Rainbow and McKenzie Bridge as affected communities but didn’t include the contact information for town representatives.

Weinstein said the company has already created a map specifying structure locations and collected municipal contact information, but hasn’t yet compiled detailed information about the size and composition of the proposed facilities.

Thomas O’Keefe, stewardship director of American Whitewater, a conservation group, has been following the proposals and said he was surprised to see the lack of detail in the application.

“I question if they know what they are doing at all,” said O’Keefe. “You can’t put in an application and say that you want to build eight or nine plants, but we don’t know where.”

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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

What a load of crap. This project will never happen. Simply put Oregonians have seen way too many Californians come up and rape the land to line their own pockets. Let’s get this straight, Jon Banana is doing this out of his big heart to save the earth, right? Nope. He is in fact encouraged in order to make money off the power this project produces by selling it back to the Oregonians that it belongs to in the first place, destroying one of the most pristine rivers in the pacific northwest in the process. Oregonians have seen this in the seventies, the nineties and now this clown is trying it. Don’t buy what he’s shovelling about not ruining the fish habitat, the lush fern undergrowth and all that. When the bulldozers come to make the ditches, pour the concrete and hoist the power lines, it will be too late.