Hydropower represents approximately 20% of the world’s energy supply, is viewed as both vulnerable to global climate warming and an asset to reduce climate altering emissions, and is increasingly the target of improved regulation to meet multiple ecosystem service benefits. It is within this context that the recent decision by the United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject studies of climate change in its consideration of reoperation of the Yuba-Bear Drum-Spaulding hydroelectric facilities in northern California is shown to be poorly reasoned and risky. Given the rapidity of climate warming, and its anticipated impacts to natural and human communities, future long-term fixed licenses of hydropower operation will be ill prepared to adapt if science-based approaches to incorporating reasonable and foreseeable hydrologic changes into study plans are not included. The licensing of hydroelectricity generation can no longer be issued in isolation due to downstream contingencies such as domestic water use, irrigated agricultural production, ecosystem maintenance, and general socioeconomic well-being. At minimum, if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is to establish conditions of operation for 30-50 years, licensees should be required to anticipate changing climatic and hydrologic conditions for a similar period of time.

Introduction:

FERC’s Integrated Licensing Process (ILP) is applicable to both relicensing existing hydroelectric projects and developing new projects. FERC’s ILP was developed during a period when there were few applications being filed for new projects. Although applications for relicensings may likely continue to outnumber applications for new projects, the complexity and number of new projects being pursued into licensing has increased significantly in the past two years. New projects today include conventional small and medium-sized hydroelectric projects. Many are multiple use water and energy projects, which can be bundled with pumped storage and transmission. There are also growing numbers of new hydroelectric based technologies such as tidal and wave energy projects that require licensing and often multiple agency approvals.

Water managers face tough challenges in sustaining the health
and availability of rivers while meeting increasing demands for
their use. One tool that can give hydro project owners guidance
is a six-step framework for ecologically sustainable water management
developed by The Nature Conservancy.

Industrial and environmental interests are accustomed to fighting to "win" disputes over the licensing of facilities and the related management of natural resources. Such processes have their drawbacks both in terms of efficiency and the results they may produce. While regarding both efficiency and potential outcomes federal judge Henry Friendly observed "under our adversary system the role of counsel is not to make sure the truth is ascertained but to advance his clients cause by any ethical means ... Causing delay and sowing confusion not only are his right but may be his duty."
Thus, increasingly both environmental and developmental interests have realized how unwieldy, expensive, and unnecessarily polarizing such models are in cases involving complex environmental and economic development issues. For several years a number of forward thinking companies have voluntarily opted for an alternative collaborative approach to balancing disparate natural rescue management interests, inviting environmentalists into the decision making process in order to reach agreement with these interests prior to presenting a management proposal to regulatory authorities. Such collaborative approaches are being used more frequently in FERC relicensing proceedings.