NYRU Celebrates Court Decision

PRESS RELEASE

Date: May 16, 2006
For release: Immediately
Contact: Bruce Carpenter, Executive Director
(315)339-2097


New York Rivers United Celebrates
Unanimous U. S. Supreme Court Decision

NYRU Says Decisive Ruling Directly Affects New York’s Rivers

Rome,NY – A Rome-based statewide river conservation organization is celebrating
a unanimous May 15, 2006, U.S. Supreme Court ruling that affirms states’ rights to protect their rivers from water quality problems caused by hydropower dams.

In January 2006, New York Rivers United (NYRU) filed an amicus brief in the nationally-significant case supporting the state of Maine’s right to protect the water quality of its rivers. In yesterday’s decisive ruling, the Court rejected a foreign company’s bid to exempt five hydroelectric dams it owns in Maine from a 35-year-old provision in the federal Clean Water Act.

“If the hydropower industry’s court challenge had been successful, rivers across the nation would lose this vital protection and would return to being used primarily to generate profits for a few energy companies at the expense of lost benefits to local communities,” NYRU executive director Bruce Carpenter said. “The hydro industry’s challenge would have turned the clock backward on river restoration. It could have rendered our state incapable of setting even basic conditions for the operation of hydropower dams within the state.”

There are more than 150 federally-licensed hydropower dams in New York State. “Since the majority of the rivers in New York (e.g., Mohawk, Oswego, Beaver, Black, Salmon, West Canada Creek) have multiple dams, most of them producing hydropower, this Supreme Court case directly affects New York’s rivers,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said, “This decisive ruling is a major victory for who love rivers and those who have worked diligently to protect our free-flowing rivers resources. It is especially rewarding here in New York where the Clean Water Act has been used extensively to restore rivers through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) process.”

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Carpenter said this vital court decision recognizes well-established science that dams can have a huge impact on water quality. He said, “Many of New York’s dams provide benefits, yet they have also caused considerable harm to rivers, as well as to local communities. Hydro dams have dried up entire river sections, depleted fisheries, degraded river ecosystems, and diminished recreational and economic opportunities on rivers across New York State.”

Since 1992, NYRU has worked closely with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), encouraging the agency used to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to require hydroelectric dams to mitigate their adverse impacts on rivers. The result of this was hundreds of river miles restored, improved fish protection and passage, and greater use by local communities.

As an amicus party to the case, NYRU strongly supported the state of Maine’s right to establish requirements for dams on its rivers. Carpenter said, “We strongly encouraged New York State to join this effort and help organize efforts across the country to fight this issue. The effort was joined by the Bush administration, a bipartisan group of 36 state attorneys general, a coalition of more than four dozen conservation and fishing groups, American Indian tribes, leading river scientists and engineers, and others that filed ‘friend of the Court’ briefs. The issue was clear: dams can hurt water quality, so water quality protection laws have to apply.”

Carpenter said, “We hope that the Court will now will apply this same common sense approach to the remaining Clean Water Act cases before it and affirm that all waters of the United States are deserving of federal protection.”

Carpenter has participated in virtually all hydropower licensing and relicensing proceedings in New York since 1992, more than 50 in all. He is an active member of the national Hydropower Reform Coalition's steering committee and is recognized as a state and national leader in this specialized field.

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