IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i12p3435-d572632.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding the Environmental Study Life Cycle in the United States Hydropower Licensing and Federal Authorization Process

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew S. P. Aldrovandi

    (Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA)

  • Esther S. Parish

    (Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA)

  • Brenda M. Pracheil

    (Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA)

Abstract

We analyzed United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) documents prepared for 29 recently licensed hydropower projects and created two novel datasets to improve understanding of the environmental study life cycle, defined here as the process that begins with an environmental study being requested by a hydropower stakeholder or regulator, and ends with the study either being rejected or approved/conducted. Our two datasets consisted of summaries of information taken from (1), study determination letters prepared by FERC for 23 projects that were using the integrated licensing process, and (2), environmental study submittals and issuances tracked and attributed to seven projects using the FERC record. Our objective was to use the two resulting environmental life cycle datasets to understand which types of environmental studies are approved, rejected, and implemented during FERC licensing, and how consistently those types of studies are required across multiple hydropower projects. We matched the requested studies to a set of 61 river function indicators in eight categories and found that studies related to the category of biota and biodiversity were requested most often across all 29 projects. Within that category, studies related to river function indicators of presence, absence, detection of species and habitat/critical habitat were the most important to stakeholders, based on the relative number of studies requested. The study approval, rejection, and request rates were similar within each dataset, although the 23 projects with study determination letters had many rejected studies, whereas the dataset created from the seven projects had very few rejected studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew S. P. Aldrovandi & Esther S. Parish & Brenda M. Pracheil, 2021. "Understanding the Environmental Study Life Cycle in the United States Hydropower Licensing and Federal Authorization Process," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-17, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3435-:d:572632
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3435/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3435/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schramm, Michael P. & Bevelhimer, Mark S. & DeRolph, Chris R., 2016. "A synthesis of environmental and recreational mitigation requirements at hydropower projects in the United States," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 87-96.
    2. Parish, Esther S. & Pracheil, Brenda M. & McManamay, Ryan A. & Curd, Shelaine L. & DeRolph, Christopher R. & Smith, Brennan T., 2019. "Review of environmental metrics used across multiple sectors and geographies to evaluate the effects of hydropower development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 101-118.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pracheil, Brenda M. & Levine, Aaron L. & Curtis, Taylor L. & Aldrovandi, Matthew S.P. & Uría-Martínez, Rocío & Johnson, Megan M. & Welch, Timothy, 2022. "Influence of project characteristics, regulatory pathways, and environmental complexity on hydropower licensing timelines in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oladosu, Gbadebo A. & Werble, Joseph & Tingen, William & Witt, Adam & Mobley, Miles & O'Connor, Patrick, 2021. "Costs of mitigating the environmental impacts of hydropower projects in the United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Lei, Kaixuan & Chang, Jianxia & Long, Ruihao & Wang, Yimin & Zhang, Hongxue, 2022. "Cascade hydropower station risk operation under the condition of inflow uncertainty," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(PA).
    3. Paweł Tomczyk & Mirosław Wiatkowski, 2021. "The Effects of Hydropower Plants on the Physicochemical Parameters of the Bystrzyca River in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-29, April.
    4. Zafar Alam & Yoshinobu Watanabe & Shazia Hanif & Tatsuro Sato & Tokihiko Fujimoto, 2021. "Community-Based Business on Small Hydropower (SHP) in Rural Japan: A Case Study on a Community Owned SHP Model of Ohito Agricultural Cooperative," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-14, June.
    5. Zafar Alam & Yoshinobu Watanabe & Shazia Hanif & Tatsuro Sato & Tokihiko Fujimoto, 2021. "Social Enterprise in Small Hydropower (SHP) Owned by a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) between a Food Cooperative and a Social Venture Company; a Case Study of the 20 kW Shiraito (Step3) SHP in It," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-10, October.
    6. Terese E. Venus & Nicole Smialek & Joachim Pander & Atle Harby & Juergen Geist, 2020. "Evaluating Cost Trade-Offs between Hydropower and Fish Passage Mitigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-30, October.
    7. Philipp Emanuel Hirsch & Moritz Schillinger & Katharina Appoloni & Patricia Burkhardt-Holm & Hannes Weigt, 2016. "Integrating Economic and Ecological Benchmarking for a Sustainable Development of Hydropower," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-20, August.
    8. Marianna Rotilio & Chiara Marchionni & Pierluigi De Berardinis, 2017. "The Small-Scale Hydropower Plants in Sites of Environmental Value: An Italian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, November.
    9. Pracheil, Brenda M. & Levine, Aaron L. & Curtis, Taylor L. & Aldrovandi, Matthew S.P. & Uría-Martínez, Rocío & Johnson, Megan M. & Welch, Timothy, 2022. "Influence of project characteristics, regulatory pathways, and environmental complexity on hydropower licensing timelines in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    10. Basso, S. & Lazzaro, G. & Bovo, M. & Soulsby, C. & Botter, G., 2020. "Water-energy-ecosystem nexus in small run-of-river hydropower: Optimal design and policy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    11. Parish, Esther S. & Pracheil, Brenda M. & McManamay, Ryan A. & Curd, Shelaine L. & DeRolph, Christopher R. & Smith, Brennan T., 2019. "Review of environmental metrics used across multiple sectors and geographies to evaluate the effects of hydropower development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 101-118.
    12. Graça Gomes, J. & Xu, H.J. & Yang, Q. & Zhao, C.Y., 2021. "An optimization study on a typical renewable microgrid energy system with energy storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    13. Sasthav, Colin & Oladosu, Gbadebo, 2022. "Environmental design of low-head run-of-river hydropower in the United States: A review of facility design models," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    14. Garrett, Kayla P. & McManamay, Ryan A. & Witt, Adam, 2023. "Harnessing the power of environmental flows: Sustaining river ecosystem integrity while increasing energy potential at hydropower dams," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3435-:d:572632. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.