(NEWPORT, WA) – 66 years after Pend Oreille County Public
Utility District received its first license to start the Box Canyon Dam
project, the PUD is still powering the homes of its 9,000 customers. The
original license to build the Box Canyon Project was issued in 1952 and had
very limited environmental regulations.
“Licensing in 1952 was a lot simpler compared to how complex
the process is now,” said Mark Cauchy, PUD Director of Regulatory and
Environmental Affairs. “Originally our license included basic operations
requirements like dam safety.”
The PUD started the relicensing process in 1995. At that
time, the license renewal required an application that involved a variety of
recreation, wildlife, environment, fisheries and erosion impact studies. The
PUD submitted the completed application by 2000 to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) who notified all the agencies with conditioning
authority.
“During the process, any agency with conditioning authority
has the ability to file their own conditions and recommendations to the license
for FERC to consider,” said Cauchy. “The first set of recommendations came back
at over 500 million dollars in projects, and we were worried how that would
impact our ratepayers.”
The PUD wasted no time in working collaboratively with
stakeholders and customers to address the potential impacts. The PUD traveled
to DC to work directly with the agency leaders and elected officials. FERC
issued the PUD annual licenses from 2002 to 2005. A 50-year license was granted
in 2005 and the District challenged some of the provisions. A full settlement
was reached with the agencies and approved by FERC in 2010.
The final license and settlement included a significant
number of additional requirements above that of the original license. The
project boundary was expanded to include the Calispell Pumping Station. It also
included provisions for several fish passages.
Reaching a settlement took a lot of effort and negotiation
between the multiple agencies. The PUD worked diligently to find ways to
achieve the conservation outcomes necessary to mitigate the impacts of the
project. In the end the PUD saved its stakeholders and customers a considerable
amount of money, resources and time working on projects that provided limited
conservation or mitigation benefit.
Cauchy’s Regulatory Affairs team manages more than simply
relicensing the dam. Other activities include managing state and federal
requirements like the Clean Water Act. This required the PUD to modernize the
dam’s lift gates to reduce TDG. They handle the Historical Preservation Act
that requires the PUD to maintain photo documentation of the dam and work to
keep the appearance as close to the original dam as possible and protect
cultural resources. Additionally, the team manages nine community water
systems, PUD owned timberlands, dam safety requirements, and an avian
protection program.
The team takes great pride in its involvement in the
Bonneville Power Administration Energy Conservation Program. The Energy
Conservation Program has been around since 1992. The team has completed over a
dozen successful commercial energy projects through the county, completed over
39 heat pump projects for customers and donated over 1,000 energy efficiency
kits to customers.
Cauchy, who has been with the PUD since 1992, will be
retiring at the end of April.
“We are always going to have rules, regulations and bumps
along the way,” he said. “My job, like other managers, isn’t necessarily to
change the rules, but to manage risk and seek what is best for our stakeholders
and customers. When we worked for ten years and finally reached a settlement,
it was all about getting the stakeholders and community behind us and working
with the agencies to come up with better, more efficient way of doing things.”
Filling Cauchy’s role as Director of Regulatory Affairs will
be Tyler Whitney who comes to the PUD with experience in policy and government
relations. He previously worked for Spokane Mayor, David Condon as his Policy
Advisor. Whitney’s father comes from a utility background, where he has been with
Richland Energy Services for 20 years. Whitney, who is an attorney, will also
serve as General Counsel.
