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Power
Authority Relicensing |
Although
this seems like a daunting challenge for something that seems
predetermined, we need
to look at the relicensing of the St. Lawrence-FDR Project in
anticipation of what to expect at Niagara. The St. Lawrence-FDR
relicensing process is nearly finished, where negotiations with the
Mohawk Nation have been going on for over four years now. The Power
Authority recently submitted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS)
of the St. Lawrence- FDR project to FERC. The DEIS covers many of the
Mohawk issues at length, including the recent Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) the St Regis Mohawk Tribe drafted with New York
State. The MOU is still subject to approval at Akwesasne, where several
new tribal leaders were elected in June. The DEIS for the St.
Lawrence-FDR Project frequently references the anticipated
implementation of the MOU, which, if ratified, includes: ◊ A land claim settlement that transfers Croil and Long Sault Islands and
95 acres of land near Massena to the Tribe, ◊ A land easement of Power Authority lands lying in the St. Lawrence River to the Tribe for the construction of trails, docks, moorings, campsites for hunting, fishing camping or ceremonial purposes (On the condition the activities do not interfere with the St. Lawrence-FDR Project), |
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The
pace has been set and we are off to a steady row, pushing the canoe of
the Tuscaroras alongside the ship of the Non-Native. The story of the
two-row wampum belt, where the paths of two people remain linked but
never interfere, could serve as a policy for many circumstances. One of
which is the current federal relicensing of the Niagara Power Project. There is a multitude of studies being conducted by the New York Power Authority, to satisfy the documentation required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the issuance of a new thirty to fifty-year license for the Project. NYPA maintains a timely website to track the development of these studies. The website can be found at: http://niagara.nypa.gov/. Once you get there, go to the link labeled “ALP Process Documents,” to find a listing of the studies. The Alternative Licensing Process (ALP) Process Documents contain a thorough record of the scoping process, following the evolution of an individual idea at the outset of scoping, to it’s transformation into a single study. A
number of the studies include assessments of the Project’s
environmental impact on natural resources of the Tuscarora Nation. The
resources being studied on the Tuscarora Nation include: groundwater;
Fish, Gill, and Cayuga
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Creeks; transmission right-of-ways, threatened and
endangered species, air quality, and various studies regarding fish and
contaminants in the Lewiston Reservoir.
(Above): A technician checks a temperature gauge on Gill Creek, which receives a separate flow of water from the Lewiston Reservoir. The data is used to compile information about the ecological condition of the Creek and the Niagara Project’s affect on surface water quality. |
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