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HomeMy WebLinkAboutORAC Letter to FERC - Continuing ORAC into New License Term Menchaca, Clarissa From: Cook, Holly Sent: Monday, May 14, 2618 11:38 AM To: Menchaca, Clarissa Cc- 'Larry Grundmann' Subject: FW: ORAC Letter to FERC re Continuing ORAC Attachments: May 9 Ltr-ORAC-to-FERC-re-continuing ORAC-20180509.p,df;ATT00001.htrn Clarissa; Please distribute to BOS. Thank you. Holly M Cook Executive Assistant to Supervisor Bill Connelly 530-538-6834 OROVILLE RECREATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE P.O. BOX 528 OROVILLE, CA 95966 May9, 2018 Filing of Request for FERC Action In the matter of LAKE OROVILLE DAM FERC PROJECT 2100 by OROVILLE RECREATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE Ms. Kimberly Bose, Secretary Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 888 First Street, Northeast Washington, DC 20426 Dear Members of the Commission, Oroville Recreation Advisory Committee (ORAC)was created By FERC in 1994 in response to failure of the licensed operator for Project 2100,the California Department of Water Resources,(DWR)to live up to its license proscribed recreation mitigation obligations since it began operations in 1968. As part of its obligations to the recreating public it represents,ORAC,at an officially noticed and properly conducted meeting on May 4, 2018 in Oroville CA,adopted a motion on a 6 to 4 vote (with all of the positive votes coming from the recreating public entities' authorized ORAC representatives)as follows: "ORAC shall immediately,either through DWR,or itself directly,ask FERC to order that the Oroville Recreation Advisory Committee be continued into the new license term when it is granted and that all references to the License Coordinating Unit(LCU)and the Recreation Advisory Committee(RAC)be removed from the Settlement Agreement and Recreation Management plan." Given the experience of how DWR treats recommendations of ORAC with which it disagrees,ORAC is hereby itself filing this recommendation. Since the time of ORAC's creation,it has been a "David vs Goliath" contest as unpaid volunteers representing the recreating public fought to get the proscribed facilities from one of the largest and most powerful bureaucracies in the state. That imbalance of power was no more evident than when, almost 15 years ago, in the relicensing agreement settlement negotiations,the DWR chief negotiator proclaimed that the removal of ORAC and substitution of a "Recreation Advisory Committee (RAC) having no voting public participation"was a non-negotiable principle. Although, greatly concerned given the experience of almost 50 years of broken recreation promises by DWR,the public parties reluctantly agreed to a trigger mechanism that was then concocted and built into the settlement to "objectively" signal when new facilities were needed based on "turn-aways"at admission kiosks,wait times at launch ramps, crowding at camp sites, etc. 1 Fast forward 15 years to the present and almost everything has changed except DWR's philosophy of"DON'T BUILD IT AND THEY WON'T COME"and then using the lower attendance figures as justification for not building the proscribed facilities.This is a circular and economically destructive argument that has negatively affected the host communities and recreating public since the Lake Oroville Dam was built. Among the changes in the intervening decade and a half: The recent history of repetitive,deeper and longer droughts cause much of even the recreation facilities that were built to be ineffectual. For instance,because of longer periods of low lake levels most of the approximately 40 launch lanes are reduced to 5 to 7 launch lanes during much of these years'prime lake recreation periods.The occurrence of low rain and snow accumulations are now more frequent and expected to continue • The lower lake levels render the access from campgrounds to swimming entry points too far away and the accompany dryer and hotter temperatures in those years make Lake Oroville SRA camping undesirable at best. • All the while,because of DWR's"sub-contracting" its recreational obligations to its sister bureaucracy,the California State Department of Parks, in order to sidestep certain license required funding obligations, admission prices are raised in response to lower attendance figures-something no business desiring to attract more public participation would reasonably do. All of these act counter to the objectives of the recreation mitigation objectives originally proscribed by FERC in granting the license.And all this happened while there was a"David-ORAC"struggling to oversee"DWR-Goliath" to get the FERC ordered facilities forthe recreating public. Realizing that,if this was an uphill battle with an advisory committee on which the public did have a voting representation,then a scenario in which an ORAC type entity did not exist and only a "fax-in-charge-of-the- henhouse" committee such as RAC had control,the recreating public stood no chance whatsoever of being served. Experience made that a certainty in most of the public's minds. Finally,the Commission should not be distracted or misled by the token projects from the"new license" era that DWR claims they have accelerated ahead of its issuance.This action was only taken as a desperate measure to assuage the deep community fears and resentment in the after math of DWR's Feb 12 2017 spillway debacle that was so harmful and dangerous.Virtually all of the cited projects were"asks" by ORAC for many years under the old license,but never initiated by DWR. Accordingly,ORAL as the FERC authorized representatives of the recreating public respectfully requests that FERC issue the order requested herein to indefinitely extend the charter of ORAC into the new license term and entirely eliminate the LCU and RAC as requested. Thank you for your kind and earnest attention to this request.If you have any questions, please contact us at the above address. Sincerely, Kevin Zeitler,ORAC Chair cc: see attached 2 ORAC Members US Senator Dianne Feinstein 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510 San Francisco Office One Post Street Suite 2450 San Francisco, CA 94104 US Senator Kamala Harris 112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 San Francisco Office 333 Bush Street Suite 3225 San Francisco, CA 94104 Assemblyman James Gallagher District Office 1130 Civic Center Blvd. Yuba City, CA 95993 District Office 2060 Talbert Drive Suite 110 Chico, CA 95928 Capitol Office State Capitol Suite 2158 Sacramento, CA 94249 Senator Jim Nielsen District Office 2635 Forest Avenue Suite 110 Chico, CA 95928 Capitol Office State Capitol Room 2068 Sacramento, CA 95814 3 Congressman Doug I_aMalfa 322 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20151 District Office 2862 Olive Highway Suite D Oroville, CA 95966 Congressman John Garamendi 2438 Rayburn NOS Washington, DC 20515 District Office 795 Plumas Street Yuba City, CA 95991 Oroville City Council 1735 Montgomery Street Oroville, CA 95965 4