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July 10, 2000
The Secretary FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION 888 First Street N.E. Washington, D.C. 20426
Project No. 2305-016 - Texas and Louisiana Toledo Bend Project Sabine River Authority - LA L TX
Dear Secretary:
The above-referenced Project currently operates under an FERC license through 2013. There is considerable interest from various stakeholders in how and why this Project is operated. We have been requested to fUrnish you a plan and schedule to identify key participants, plans for future meetings, and progress reports to the Commission.
The Toledo Bend Project was built by the Sabine River Authority of Texas and Sabine River Authority, State of Louisiana primarily for the purposes of water supply, hydroelectric power generation, and recreation. As a water supply, this Project has a dependable yield of approximately 1,868 million gallons per day. The hydroelectric plant is rated at 42,500 KVA and is designed and operated as a peaking plant producing an average of over 200,000,000 kWh's annually. With over 1,200 miles of shoreline and 185,000 surface acres, at full pool, the recreational activities and opportunities are enormous.
This Project was built without any federal participation in the funding and approximately one-half of the total cost was financed through the sale of hydroelectric revenue bonds. The revenue to repay these bonds is secured through a long-term (50 years) power sales agreement with three power companies. The power sales also primarily fund the annual maintenance and operation of the Project.
Since the hydroelectric power is used primarily for peak demand purposes, a prime power season was developed which basically requires the reservoi to be full in May and the water is allocated for power production of 65,700,000 kWh's from May September (prime power season). This will generally result in a drawdown of 3 - 5 feet and during drought conditions, more than that. The power pool at Toledo Bend is from 162.T msl to 172.0' msl.
This multi-purpose reservoir has many stakeholders that either by contract have interests in the operations, or by activity associated with reservoirs have developed certain interests. The following list identifies these stakeholders as we see them:
· Sabine River Authorities of Texas and Louisiana - Owners of the Project.
· Entergy-Texas, Entergy-Louisiana, and CentralLouisianaElectric Cooperative - Parties to the Power Sales Agreement that helped finance the Project.
· Texas Water Development Board - The water planning agency forthe State of Texas. They loaned the SRA-TX the brlsnce SRA-TX needed to complete its portion ofthe financing. This water supply is vital to the ions-term water planning in Texas.
· State and local emergency managemed personnel that cooperate with the SRA's during emergency conditions.
· Texas Parks Br Wildlife and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries The State agencies responsible for managing the wildlife and fisheries. Toledo Bend is one of the premier fisheries in the coudry.
· Local county and perish officials both upstream and downstream of the reservoir.
· Groups Like the Bi-State Alliance and the Sabine River Action Coalition that have lake level and downstream flooding issues respectively.
As you can see ~om the many differed stakeholders, this reservoir indeed serves multiple purposes and we offer the following schedule that we believe will timely address meeting with the varied interests:
· May 13, 2000 - Initial meeting with the FERC representatives, SRA-TX and LA personnel and members of the Bi-Swe Alliance and Sabine River Action Coalition.
· July 2000 - Meetings between SPA-TX & LA personnel and the following stakeholders:
· Power Companies - Parties to the Power Sales Agreement. · County Judges on Texas side ofProject, upstream and downstream. · Texas and Louisiana Emergency Management personnel.
· August 2000 - Texas Parks B Wildlife - Receive a study commissioned by the SRA-TX 8t LA on the economic impact Tdedo Bad has onthe surrounding area. This study also has a fioheries enhancement part, and hopefully we can involve the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at this same meeting.
· September/October 2000 - Texas Water Development Board - Discuss the State of Tares Water Plan which is to be completed in September.
· October/November 2000 - Groups such as the Bi-State Alliance primarily interested in issues around the reservoir.
Groups like the Sabine River Action Coalition primarily interested in downstream issues related to flooding.
· October/November/December 2000 - Meet with Louisiana Police Jurors and other appropriate elected officials.
· Spring 2001 - Public meetings -two in each state to hear concerns/comments.
· Summer 2001 - Evaluate information received and prepare report to be presented to FERC and interested stakeholders.
Should this schedule vary considerably, we will advise you with our progress
We hope this submittal meets your requirements, and we look fonvard to working with ail parties involved, if you have any questions, please advise.
DH:dkb
Sincerely,
Donnie Henson Operations Manager
H. Mark RobiRPon, Director Division ofEnvironmental t Engineering Review, FERC
ion Cofrancesco, FERC Toledo Bend Project Technical Board TBPJO
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