Notice of Scoping Meetings and Environmental Site Review and Soliciting Scoping Comments; Great Falls Hydroelectric Company, City of Paterson, New Jersey, 51536-51537 [2019-21141]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 189 (Monday, September 30, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51536-51537]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-21141]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Project No. 2814-025]


Notice of Scoping Meetings and Environmental Site Review and 
Soliciting Scoping Comments; Great Falls Hydroelectric Company, City of 
Paterson, New Jersey

    Take notice that the following hydroelectric application has been 
filed with the Commission and is available for public inspection.
    a. Type of Application: New Major License.
    b. Project No.: 2814-025.
    c. Date Filed: February 28, 2019.
    d. Applicants: Great Falls Hydroelectric Company and the City of 
Paterson, New Jersey, as co-licensees.
    e. Name of Project: Great Falls Hydroelectric Project.
    f. Location: On the Passaic River, near the City of Paterson, 
Passaic County, New Jersey. The project does not occupy federal land.
    g. Filed Pursuant to: Federal Power Act 16 U.S.C. 791(a)-825(r).
    h. Applicant Contact: Mr. Robert Gates, Senior Vice President of 
Operations, Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, 65 Madison Avenue, Suite 500, 
Morristown, NJ 07960; (973) 998-8400; [email protected] 
and/or Ben-David Seligman, 2nd Assistant Corp. Counsel, City of 
Paterson, 155 Market Street, Paterson, NJ; (973) 321-1366; email_
[email protected]
    i. FERC Contact: Christopher Millard at (202) 502-8256; or email at 
[email protected].
    j. Deadline for filing scoping comments: November 23, 2019.

[[Page 51537]]

    The Commission strongly encourages electronic filing. Please file 
scoping comments using the Commission's eFiling system at https://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp. Commenters can submit brief 
comments up to 6,000 characters, without prior registration, using the 
eComment system at https://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/ecomment.asp. You 
must include your name and contact information at the end of your 
comments. For assistance, please contact FERC Online Support at 
[email protected], (866) 208-3676 (toll free), or (202) 502-
8659 (TTY). In lieu of electronic filing, please send a paper copy to: 
Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, 
Washington, DC 20426. The first page of any filing should include 
docket number P-2814-025.
    k. This application is not ready for environmental analysis at this 
time.
    l. The existing project works consist of: (1) The Society for the 
Establishment of Useful Manufactures dam, an overflow granite stone 
gravity structure about 315 feet long, with a maximum height of 15 feet 
and having a crest elevation of 114.6 feet mean sea level (msl); (2) a 
reservoir with a surface area of 202 acres and a storage capacity of 
1,415 acre-feet at elevation 114.6 feet msl; (3) a forebay inlet 
structure; (4) a headgate control structure containing three trashracks 
and three steel gates; (5) three penstocks, each 8.5 feet in diameter 
and approximately 55 feet long; (6) a powerhouse containing three 
turbine-generator units with a total rated capacity of 10.95 megawatts; 
(7) a 37-foot-long, 4.16-kilovolt (kV) underground transmission line 
connecting the powerhouse to a 4.16/26.4-kV step-up transformer which 
in turn is connected to a 26.4-kV transmission grid via an 
approximately 30-foot-long, 26.4-kV underground transmission line; (8) 
and appurtenant facilities.
    The Great Falls Project is operated in a run-of-river mode. For the 
period 2010 through 2018, the average annual generation at the Great 
Falls Project was 17,484 megawatt-hours.
    m. A copy of the application is available for review at the 
Commission in the Public Reference Room or may be viewed on the 
Commission's website at https://www.ferc.gov using the ``eLibrary'' 
link. Enter the docket number excluding the last three digits in the 
docket number field to access the document. For assistance, contact 
FERC Online Support. A copy is also available for inspection and 
reproduction at the address in item h above.
    You may also register online at https://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/esubscription.asp to be notified via email of new filings and issuances 
related to this or other pending projects. For assistance, contact FERC 
Online Support.
    n. Scoping Process.
    The Commission intends to prepare an environmental assessment (EA) 
on the projects in accordance with the National Environmental Policy 
Act. The EA will consider both site-specific and cumulative 
environmental impacts and reasonable alternatives to the proposed 
action.

Scoping Meetings

    FERC staff will conduct one agency scoping meeting and one public 
meeting. The agency scoping meeting will focus on resource agency and 
non-governmental organization (NGO) concerns, while the public scoping 
meeting is primarily for public input. All interested individuals, 
organizations, and agencies are invited to attend one or both of the 
meetings, and to assist the staff in identifying the scope of the 
environmental issues that should be analyzed in the EA. The times and 
locations of these meetings are as follows:

Public Scoping Meeting

    Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2019.
    Time: 7:00 p.m. (EDT).
    Place: Rogers Meeting Center, Second Floor.
    Address: 32 Spruce Street, Paterson, New Jersey.

Agency Scoping Meeting

    Date: Thursday, October 24, 2019.
    Time: 2:00 p.m. (EDT).
    Place: Rogers Meeting Center, Second Floor.
    Address: 32 Spruce Street, Paterson, New Jersey.
    Copies of the Scoping Document (SD1) outlining the subject areas to 
be addressed in the EA were distributed to the parties on the 
Commission's mailing list. Copies of the SD1 will be available at the 
scoping meeting or may be viewed on the web at https://www.ferc.gov 
using the ``eLibrary'' link (see item m above).

Environmental Site Review

    The applicants and FERC staff will conduct a project Environmental 
Site Review beginning at 9:00 a.m. on October 24, 2019. All interested 
individuals, organizations, and agencies are invited to attend. All 
participants should meet at the Great Falls Project facility, located 
at 72 McBride Avenue, Paterson, New Jersey. All participants are 
responsible for their own transportation to the site and during the 
site visit. Anyone with questions about the Environmental Site Review 
should contact Mr. Matt Nini, Relicensing Project Manager for Eagle 
Creek, at 973-998-8171 or [email protected].

Objectives

    At the scoping meetings, the staff will: (1) Summarize the 
environmental issues tentatively identified for analysis in the EA; (2) 
solicit from the meeting participants all available information, 
especially quantifiable data, on the resources at issue; (3) encourage 
statements from experts and the public on issues that should be 
analyzed in the EA, including viewpoints in opposition to, or in 
support of, the staff's preliminary views; (4) determine the resource 
issues to be addressed in the EA; and (5) identify those issues that 
require a detailed analysis, as well as those issues that do not 
require a detailed analysis.

Procedures

    The meetings are recorded by a stenographer and become part of the 
formal record of the Commission proceeding on the projects. 
Individuals, organizations, and agencies with environmental expertise 
and concerns are encouraged to attend the meeting and to assist the 
staff in defining and clarifying the issues to be addressed in the EA.

    Dated: September 23, 2019.
Nathaniel J. Davis, Sr.,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2019-21141 Filed 9-27-19; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P