Irrigation Districts Petition FERC to Waive the State’s Water Quality Authority

In October, 2020 the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts petitioned FERC to waive the State Water Board’s authority to issue a water quality certification for the licensing of Don Pedro and La Grange Dams. TRT is fortunate to have pro bono legal counsel from Morrison Foerster, which helped us draft our coalition’s response .

Unfortunately, FERC has recently been determining that the State has waived its authority on a number of other recent licensing proceedings. They’ve based their position on a court ruling (Hoopa Valley Tribe) that concluded a process used by the Water Board and license applicants to address timing issues, known as “withdraw and resubmit,” was inappropriate. In these other cases, FERC has argued the State failed to “act” within one year of applications being submitted, as required by the licensing process. However, in the case of the Tuolumne licenses, the Water Board denied the applications, which is an action. We have a strong case, and are optimistic we will prevail.