May 20, 2019 — A local organization has taken a significant step toward trying for the license to the Potter Valley Project. The Inland Water and Power Commission (IWPC) voted unanimously on Friday to take part in an agreement with California Trout and the Sonoma County Water District to study the feasibility of obtaining the license, which is set to expire in April of 2022.
Each party will contribute $100,000 toward the effort, which involves submitting a notice of intent and a pre-application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by July 1 of this year. Earlier this year, the project’s owner, PG&E, made a brief attempt at auctioning the project through a complex, secretive process before withdrawing its notice of intent to relicense it.
The IWPC is a Joint Powers Authority representing the County of Mendocino, the City of Ukiah, Redwood Valley County Water District, Potter Valley Irrigation District and the Mendocino County Russian River Flood Control and Water Conservation Improvement District. The coalition studying the application process is flexible in that additional regional members can be invited to participate, which IWPC Chair Janet Pauli hopes will help spread the costs around and bring expertise to bear. She added that these costs will become known soon, since, unlike buying the project from PG&E, the process of applying for a license through FERC is public.
We’ll hear from Pauli in this interview from May 17, right after the special IWPC meeting. A longer, lightly edited version is also available.