Ampersand Cranberry Lake Assessed $600,000 Civil Penalty for Failing to Maintain Control of Hydro Project

Summary:

On April 27, 1987, the Commission issued an original license for the project to Trafalgar Power, Inc, which operated the project under a lease agreement with the Oswegatchie River-Cranberry Reservoir Regulating District Corporation (OR-CRRDC) – a New York state municipal corporation and the owner of the dam. After the project fell into disrepair, Trafalgar Power, Inc. (transferor) and Ampersand Cranberry Lake (transferee) filed an application to transfer the project’s license. The Commission approved the transfer of the license to Ampersand Cranberry Lake on March 12, 2015. Ampersand Cranberry Lake operated the project under a lease agreement with OR-CRRDC (Lease Agreement) until July 6, 2021, when the parties executed a Settlement and Release Agreement that terminated the lease. Ampersand Cranberry Lake intentionally entered into an agreement that directly led to its violation of Article 5 of its license. Ampersand Cranberry Lake economically benefitted by this resolution by avoiding having to pay both amounts owing under its dam lease and amounts it knew it would need to expend on Commission-directed safety repairs it had voluntarily undertaken to make when it took transfer of the license. Ampersand Cranberry Lake’s action continued to expose those downstream of its project to the risks of these un-remediated safety issues and at best delayed, and at worst indefinitely postponed, the performance of these necessary safety repairs. And its actions demonstrate that, rather than being motivated to remediate the potential license violations, Ampersand Cranberry Lake instead sought to precipitate those violations in hopes of avoiding the consequences of an economic arrangement with the dam owner that it no longer found to be advantageous. The Cranberry Lake Project is located immediately upstream of Cranberry Lake on the Oswegatchie River in the Town of Clifton, St. Lawrence County, New York. The project consists of: (1) a concrete gravity spillway; (2) an earthen embankment with a fuse plug emergency spillway section; (3) a 57,400 acre-foot reservoir; (4) a short power channel canal; (5) a powerhouse with a 595-kilowatt (kW) generator; (6) a gate structure with two low level outlets; (7) a sluiceway and two stop log openings; and (8) an access road.

Additional Discussion:

Excerpt from Article 5:

“The Licensee or its successors and assigns shall, during the period of the license, retain the possession of all project property covered by the license as issued or as later amended, including the project area, the project works, and all franchises, easements, water rights, and rights of occupancy and use…”

Determination

FERC determined that Cranberry Lake Project No. 9685. (Project), violated Article 5 of the project’s license by failing to retain the possession of all project property covered by the license. In light of the violation of Article 5 resulting from Respondent’s deliberate decision to abandon all project property, FERC determined it appropriate to assess a civil penalty of $600,000.

Associated Files: 20220421-179FERC61037-PN9685-036-Ampersand Cranberry-Ord Assessing Pnlty