|
Webster asked to support alternate relicensing proposal
By Lynn Hotaling
Webster town leaders are considering backing Jackson County in a proposal that would keep the Dillsboro Dam in place. It would also require Duke Power to provide more cash in return for using public waterways to generate electricity than the utility company has offered so far.
Webster planning board Chairman Susan Leveille brought the draft document to town leaders last week (May 5).
One major difference in the plan under consideration and the Cooperative Stakeholders’ Agreement (signed in 2003 by Duke, local outfitters, state and federal agencies, the towns of Sylva and Dillsboro and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) is that the new proposal would preserve the Dillsboro Dam, Leveille told Webster leaders. Jackson County’s proposal would require Duke to give the Dillsboro Dam and generating plant to Jackson County, though Leveille did not mention that aspect.
“I’d like the town of Webster to consider being a signee of the preferred settlement agreement to be sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as an alternative to the one Duke sent,” Leveille said.
According to Leveille, the proposal “tells FERC lots of omissions” in Duke’s plan and “would redress some of the deficiencies in the Duke plan.”
Webster officials also need to consider the effect the removal of the Dillsboro Dam might have on their town, Leveille said.
“One of the things that may happen to Webster if the dam is taken out is that we may see much more use of the river through our town, which the planning board perceives overall as a negative,” Leveille said.
While Mayor Steve Gray and town board member Jean Davenport expressed likely support for the plan, Webster’s board did not take action on the draft proposal.
Despite the fact that Jackson County leaders and their Arlington, Va., lawyer Paul Nolan prepared the proposal, it has yet to be discussed openly during a commissioners meeting. Franklin’s town board signed on last week, but the matter died for lack of a second during a May 2 Macon County commissioners’ meeting.
According to a May 6 report in The Franklin Press, Macon indicated it might prefer one-on-one negotiations with the power company instead of joining Jackson County in litigation.
Jackson County Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan said the reason for discussing the proposal in closed session (as he confirmed commissioners did April 18) was to confer with Nolan to formulate legal tactics.
“We’re putting together a potential plan,” McMahan said. “The discussion we’re having is a little bit different – it’s legal strategy.”
North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law allows elected officials to confer with their attorneys in closed session.
McMahan, who became Commissioners’ Chairman in late March after the resignation of Stacy Buchanan, said he wouldn’t be opposed to sitting down with Duke to try and settle things.
“I’m not opposed to any negotiations,” he said.
Timing of other boards’ meetings is the main reason the draft agreement was discussed in Franklin and Webster before local commissioners have considered it publicly, said Jackson County Manager Ken Westmoreland.
“When Paul Nolan was here, we had several amendments to incorporate (before taking the) whole matter up,” Westmoreland said. “We would have preferred to go first.”
It is not clear at this point what weight, if any, such a plan would be given by federal energy officials as compared to the Stakeholders’ Agreement submitted with Duke’s relicensing applications.
FERC licenser Ed Abrams, in Sylva in December to hear public comment on the Duke projects, said that, in general, if a settlement looks reasonable and is signed by most stakeholders, FERC will go along with it.
“All we know is that we have a Settlement Agreement signed by the major stakeholders,” Abrams said at that time. “We have to take it seriously, but that does not mean others’ opinions won’t be counted.”
When contacted Monday about how the commission might view an agreement like the one Jackson County is proposing, FERC spokesman Celeste Miller that “if a settlement agreement is filed, the Commission would review it at that time.”
Nolan, who was retained last fall to help Jackson County negotiate with federal power officials, has been paid $58,956 to date, according to county finance officer Darlene Fox. Jackson County has also engaged the services of environmental consultant John Boaze of Whittier, and his firm, Fish and Wildlife Associates, has received $10,054.90 from the county, Fox said.
Duke declined comment on the draft plan being floated by Jackson County.
“Until we see the final document and all relevant attachments, it would not be appropriate to comment in detail,” said Fred Alexander, district manager of Duke Power-Nantahala Area. “We believe that the Nantahala and Tuckasegee settlement agreements signed in October 2003 by the company and various state and federal agencies, the Town of Dillsboro, Town of Sylva, local outfitters and others is more broadly based.”
Duke is seeking relicensing of its Jackson County hydroelectric facilities because current operating licenses expire this year and next.
The company operates Thorpe and Tuckasegee power plants on the Tuckaseigee River’s West Fork, and Wolf Creek, Tanassee Creek, Bear Creek and Cedar Cliff on the river’s East Fork.
The power company has agreed to surrender its license to operate the Dillsboro plant, its only hydro plant on the Tuckaseigee’s main stem, as part of required mitigation for the effects of its other projects.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife, one of three agencies given statutory authority by Congress with regard to relicensing applications, supports that plan, according to the agency’s Mark Cantrell, who participated in three years of negotiations with Duke as part of the Cooperative Stakeholders team.
“We are still quite interested in all of the benefits of the proposed removal of the Dillsboro Dam,” Cantrell said in a Monday e-mail. “We are very anxious to move forward with this dam removal in order to realize the soonest river restoration. We have not wavered in our support for the Settlement Agreement that we entered into with Duke Power Co.”
|
