{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Potter Valley Project relicensing effort facing costly hurdles","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":390,"description":"October 18, 2021 — Efforts to take over the license for the Potter Valley Project have had some significant setbacks lately. One is an expensive equipment failure that could take up to a year and a half to repair. The other is that the Two Basin Partnership, a coalition of entities seeking to take over the license from PG&E, has not been able to secure the funding it needs for studies that are necessary for a final license application. The Partnership asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for some extra time to come up with the money, but FERC refused. Now the Partnership is worried that the Commission could ask PG&E to surrender the project. Meanwhile, with the license set to expire in mid-April, the Friends of the Eel River, who have long called for the removal of Scott Dam and eventually full decommission, think that their objective might be nearer than they expected.\r\nFor Alicia Hamann, the Executive Director of Friends of the Eel River, the failure was a stroke of good luck. “Even with all the in-depth work we’ve done (on Scott Dam) looking at seismic stability and landslides and potential failure of the needle valve and problems with the foundation and all kinds of problems, the failure of the transformer bank is something we never considered,” she reflected. “So this just kind of goes to show that there are a great number of ways that this project is really aging, and really unreliable.”\r\nBut Janet Pauli, of the Potter Valley Irrigation District and the Inland Water and Power Commission, which is part of the Two Basin Partnership, says that if PG&E surrenders the project without an heir, nobody knows what will happen next.\r\nMuch of the uncertainty could be resolved with studies that would answer questions about what it would take to operate the project. But the source of the money to pay for those studies is uncertain, too. The Partnership had hoped PG&E would foot the bill, which the company did not do. And state and federal funds haven’t...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}