Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc.; Notice of Scoping Meetings and Soliciting Scoping Comments, 21513-21514 [2024-06642]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 61 (Thursday, March 28, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 21513-21514]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-06642]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Project No. 5089-027]


Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc.; Notice of Scoping 
Meetings and Soliciting Scoping Comments

    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.: 5089-027.
    c. Date filed: August 31, 2021.
    d. Applicant: Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc.
    e. Name of Project: Felt Hydroelectric Project (Felt Project or 
project).
    f. Location: On the Teton River, near the town of Tetonia, in Teton 
County, Idaho. The project occupies 114.4 acres of federal land 
administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
    g. Filed Pursuant to: Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 791(a)-825(r).
    h. Applicant Contact: Nicholas Josten, 2742 Saint Charles Ave., 
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83404; (208) 528-6152.
    i. FERC Contact: John Matkowski at (202) 502-8576; or email at 
[email protected].
    j. Deadline for filing scoping comments: May 21, 2024.
    The Commission strongly encourages electronic filing. Please file 
scoping comments using the Commission's eFiling system at https://ferconline.ferc.gov/FERCOnline.aspx. Commenters can submit brief 
comments up to 6,000 characters, without prior registration, using the 
eComment system at https://ferconline.ferc.gov/QuickComment.aspx. 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 via 
U.S. Postal Service to: Debbie-Anne A. Reese, Acting Secretary, Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Room 1A, Washington, 
DC 20426. Submissions sent via any other carrier must be addressed to: 
Debbie-Anne A. Reese, Acting Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, Maryland 20852. All 
filings must clearly identify the project name and docket number on the 
first page: Felt Hydroelectric Project (P-5089-027).
    The Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure require all 
intervenors filing documents with the Commission to serve a copy of 
that document on each person on the official service list for the 
project. Further, if an intervenor files comments or documents with the 
Commission relating to the merits of an issue that may affect the 
responsibilities of a particular resource agency, they must also serve 
a copy of the document on that resource agency.
    k. This application is not ready for environmental analysis at this 
time.
    l. The Felt Project includes: (1) a 122.5-foot-long, 12-foot-high 
concrete dam that includes the following sections: (a) 25-foot-long 
sluiceway section with a 4-foot-wide fish ladder and a 14-foot-wide 
corrugated steel radial gate and (b) a 96-foot-long uncontrolled 
overflow spillway with a crest elevation of 5,530-feet mean sea level 
(msl); (2) a 7-acre impoundment with a storage capacity of 28 acre-feet 
at a normal water surface elevation of 5,530-feet msl; (3) a 178-foot-
long, 8.5-foot-deep fish screen structure equipped with a bar rack with 
3/8-inch clear bar spacing and diamond mesh screen; (4) three intake 
openings located behind the fish screen each equipped with 10-foot-wide 
intake gates and 10-foot-wide trash racks with 3-inch clear bar 
spacing; (5) three, 8-foot-square unlined rock tunnels connecting the 
intakes to penstocks and consisting of: (a) a 179-foot-long Tunnel No. 
1 connecting to a 280-foot-long, 78-inch-diameter steel penstock that 
bifurcates into two, 180-foot-long, 60-inch-diameter steel penstocks 
that connect to Powerhouse No. 1; and (b) a 177-foot-long Tunnel No. 2 
and a 196-foot-long Tunnel No. 3 each connecting to a 1,750-foot-long, 
96-inch-diameter steel penstock that connects to Powerhouse No. 2; (6) 
an 83-foot-long, 26-foot-wide, 13-foot-high reinforced concrete 
Powerhouse No. 1 containing two horizontal Francis turbine-generator 
units with a combined generating capacity of 1,950 kilowatts (kW); (7) 
a 36-foot-long, 36-foot-wide, 25-foot-high reinforced concrete 
Powerhouse No. 2 containing two vertical Francis turbine-generator 
units with a combined generating capacity of 5,500 kW; (8) two tailrace 
channels discharging to the Teton River from Powerhouses No. 1 and No. 
2; (9) a 1,500-foot-long, 4.16 kilovolt (kV) overhead transmission line 
connecting Powerhouse No. 1 to a transformer

[[Page 21514]]

located next to Powerhouse No. 2; (10) a 2,000-foot-long, 24.9 kV 
overhead transmission line leading from the transformer to the 
interconnection point; and (11) appurtenant facilities.
    The project operates in a run-of-river mode such that outflow from 
the project approximates inflow. The project has a maximum hydraulic 
capacity of 900 cubic feet per second (cfs) when all four turbine 
generator units in Powerhouse No. 1 (upper powerhouse) and Powerhouse 
No. 2 (lower powerhouse) are operating. The project is required to 
discharge a minimum flow into the 1,950-foot-long bypassed reach of 20 
cfs from July 1 to March 14 and 50 cfs from March 15 to June 30. The 
project generates an average of 33,100 megawatt-hours per year.
    m. Copies of the application can be viewed on the Commission's 
website at https://www.ferc.gov, using the ``eLibrary'' link. Enter the 
project's docket number, excluding the last three digits in the docket 
number field, to access the document. For assistance, contact FERC 
Online Support.
    You may also register at https://ferconline.ferc.gov/FERCOnline.aspx to be notified via email of new filings and issuances 
related to this or other pending projects. For assistance, please 
contact FERC Online Support at [email protected].
    The Commission's Office of Public Participation (OPP) supports 
meaningful public engagement and participation in Commission 
proceedings. OPP can help members of the public, including landowners, 
environmental justice communities, Tribal members and others, access 
publicly available information and navigate Commission processes. For 
public inquiries and assistance with making filings such as 
interventions, comments, or requests for rehearing, the public is 
encouraged to contact OPP at (202) 502-6595, or at [email protected].
    n. Scoping Process:
    Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 
Commission staff intends to prepare either an environmental assessment 
(EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS) (collectively referred 
to as the ``NEPA document'') that describes and evaluates the probable 
effects, including an assessment of the site-specific and cumulative 
effects, if any, of the proposed action and alternatives. The 
Commission's scoping process will help determine the required level of 
analysis and satisfy the NEPA scoping requirements, irrespective of 
whether the Commission issues an EA or an EIS.

Scoping Meetings

    Commission staff will hold two public scoping meetings to receive 
input on the scope of the NEPA document. An evening meeting will focus 
on receiving input from the public and a daytime meeting will focus on 
the concerns of resource agencies, non-governmental organizations 
(NGOs), and Indian Tribes. We invite all interested agencies, Indian 
Tribes, NGOs, and individuals to attend one or both meetings. The times 
and locations of these meetings are as follows:

Daytime Scoping Meeting

Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Time: 1:00 p.m. MT
Place: AmericInn Lodge
Address: 1098 Golden Beauty Dr, Rexburg, Idaho 83440

Evening Scoping Meeting

Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Time: 6:00 p.m. MT
Place: AmericInn Lodge
Address: 1098 Golden Beauty Dr, Rexburg, Idaho 83440

    Copies of the Scoping Document (SD1) outlining the subject areas to 
be addressed in the NEPA document 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).
    An environmental site review is typically held in conjunction with 
the scoping meeting. However, access to the project site is likely to 
be limited by winter weather and/or poor vehicular access conditions 
when scoping for this project will occur. For these reasons, an 
environmental site review will not be conducted at this time.

Objectives

    At the scoping meetings, Commission staff will: (1) summarize the 
environmental issues tentatively identified for analysis in the NEPA 
document; (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 NEPA document, including viewpoints in 
opposition to, or in support of, the staff's preliminary views; (4) 
determine the resource issues to be addressed in the NEPA document; 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 project. Individuals, 
NGOs, Indian Tribes, 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 NEPA 
document.

    Dated: March 22, 2024.
Debbie-Anne A. Reese,
Acting Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2024-06642 Filed 3-27-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P