Thursday, March 6, 2014

SRBC Approves Emergency Water Use Rules, 12 Water Withdrawal Requests

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission Thursday held its quarterly business meeting in Harrisburg, Pa. Among its actions, SRBC--
-- adopted final regulations pertaining to revised emergency water use provisions to go into effect June 1;
-- authorized execution of a Memorandum of Understanding with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation with the intent of facilitating coordinated regulatory activities;
revised its FY-2015 budget;
-- accepted the ratification of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) settlement agreement pertaining to the relicensing of the York Haven Hydroelectric Project and authorized the Executive Director to execute on behalf of the Commission the additional settlement agreements contemplated under the FERC integrated licensing process;
-- provided an extension of an emergency certificate issued to the Pennsylvania Department of the Environmental Protection;
-- accepted settlement offers from Inflection Energy, LLC and Talisman Energy USA Inc. for compliance matters; and
-- approved 12 water withdrawal and consumptive use applications and tabled 7 applications (Click Here for a list of projects approved).
SRBC’s voting commissioners and alternates were: Col. Trey Jordan, SRBC Chair and Commander, Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Kenneth Lynch, SRBC Vice Chair and Director, Region 7, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation; Kelly Heffner, Deputy Secretary for Water Management, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; and Dr. Robert Summers, Secretary, Maryland Department of the Environment.
For more information, visit SRBC’s Public Participation Center webpage.