By Amanda Durish Cook

FERC last week denied a request to reconsider its decision to revoke the license for a small Michigan hydroelectric project over significant safety concerns.

The commission also rejected Boyce Hydro’s motion to transfer the license for its 4.8-MW Edenville Dam to another operator, Wolverine Hydro, calling the request moot in light of the revocation (P–10808).

FERC ordered Edenville closed in February 2018, then revoked the dam’s license the following month after finding it had insufficient spillway capacity and that Boyce had a longstanding history of noncompliance with other safety measures. The commission denied Boyce’s request for rehearing on the closure early this year. (See Closed Michigan Dam Loses Rehearing Bid.)

In the order issued Thursday, FERC said it only entertains motions for reconsideration when a party can assert the commission “may have erred by overlooking or misunderstanding facts or arguments set forth in the party’s rehearing request.” Boyce didn’t pose that argument in its request for rehearing over the license, and its other arguments were “unconvincing,” the commission wrote.

“Here, Boyce Hydro does not claim that the commission misunderstood or misinterpreted its prior arguments. Thus, its pleading is not a proper request for reconsideration and we will not consider it as such. … To the extent that Boyce Hydro seeks to introduce new facts and arguments into the record, it is making an untimely, collateral attack on the now final revocation order.”

FERC made clear that revocation of the license was not up for negotiation and that Boyce’s only recourse now is to seek a new license.

“In any event, we have no ability to grant the relief that Boyce Hydro seeks. We have revoked the license for the Edenville Project, in orders that are now final. Accordingly, we currently have no jurisdiction over the Edenville project works. Should Boyce Hydro or any other entity wish to operate the project to generate electricity, they would need to seek a license to do so,” FERC said.

And because it could not reinstate the Edenville license, FERC said it also could not grant the request to transfer the license to Wolverine.

Boyce had claimed that it could secure a new power purchase agreement with Consumers Energy at a higher rate that would have allowed it to obtain a loan to “fund construction of auxiliary spillway capacity sufficient to pass the entire [probable maximum flood]” requirement, then pass the license to Wolverine.

But FERC said Boyce brought no “firm proof” that such a situation will play out.