Crescent barred

Does the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) really have a policy about people living on Grant County PUD’s Crescent Bar Island?

Just how far reaching is the power of the FERC?

Yes, we want to continue using clean renewable hydroelectric generating dams. But was the licensing ever meant to provide absolute control over non-federal lands? It seems the commission is overstepping its duties by telling the Grant PUD who can live on their island. It is their land to manage as the public desires and the PUD commissioners see fit.

We are sure there are plenty of rules and regulations allowing such control when providing a license to operate a dam to rationalize such a policy. But we also think they should stick to the main reason for having the commission — maintaining dams on public lands are operated safely with benefit for the public.

If people lived below a dam, then there is reason to require immediate flood zones be cleared of residents. But in the middle of the Columbia River, far away from the dams?

The Bureau of Reclamation found a way to allow the town of Conconully, population 190, to live in the shadow of a giant earthen dam. One that was once predicted to liquidate and destroy the town with a 30 wall of water during an earthquake of at least 6 on the Richter magnitude scale. The bureau rebuilt the dam and the town remains — with people living just beneath it. Literally, within a few yards of it.

Granted we are not talking about the Bureau of Reclamation, just an energy-regulating commission. But it is interesting how there can be such a difference in their policies about people living near a dam. Neither agency owns the land the residents are using. Conconully is in a far great danger from a dam than Crescent Bar.

We hope FERC can and will provide an understandable reason for their policy.

— Editorial board