Environmental Report Calls On California Public Utilities Commission For Full Review Of PG&E Hydro Divestiture

In a report released today, Environmental Defense and the California Hydropower Reform Coalition (CHRC) called on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to protect the public’s interest in healthy rivers and clean water supplies. The environmental groups specifically asked the CPUC not to short-circuit a complete, public evaluation of the damage that hydroelectric projects owned by the PG&E Corporation have wrought on the environment. The report is available here.

PG&E has proposed to the CPUC that it would divest its 174 dams, turbines, conduits and assorted facilities without any reckoning of the massive environmental damage that decades of unbridled hydropower operations have caused. The hydro system provides about 5% of California’s electricity but has dammed more than half of the rivers in the Sierra Nevada. The inexpensive hydropower comes at a steep environmental price. Many of PG&E’s hydropower facilities divert virtually the entire summertime flow of rivers into tunnels and canals. Over 380 miles of conveyances are included in the plants proposed for transfer.

After an unsuccessful attempt to transfer the system to an unregulated subsidiary, PG&E announced plans in September, 1999, to auction the facilities, triggering a lengthy proceeding before the CPUC now entering its tenth month. Just last month, however, an energy trade magazine reported that PG&E now actually hopes to buy its hydropower system from itself and transfer the system to its own unregulated subsidiary.

“We ask the Public Utilities Commission to stand firm and ensure that a full and fair environmental assessment of PG&E’s project impacts be completed. This is the Commission’s - and the public’s - first and last chance to understand the tradeoffs and the true environmental costs of PG&E hydro,” said Tom Graff, Environmental Defense’s California regional director.

“The Public Utilities Commission must take charge to hold PG&E accountable for the widespread environmental damages. PG&E will say that it is addressing all environmental impacts through the -more- relicensing of its hydropower projects,” said Kevin Lewis, a director of American Whitewater and activist with the CHRC. “But to date, that has not been the case. PG&E continues to delay the clean-up of water quality, the restoration of flows to our rivers, and the protection of healthy fisheries.”

The report issued today by Environmental Defense and the CHRC provides an overview of hydropower in California, the conditions of rivers affected by PG&E’s dams, and recommends actions by the CPUC before any final decision is made for the ownership of PG&E’s hydro system.