Flowing Water, Flowing Costs: Assessing FERC’s Authority to Decommission Dams
This year, 2019, marks the 20th anniversary of the removal of the Edwards Dam, one of the first functioning hydroelectric dam to be decommissioned and removed in the United States. It was also the first to be removed under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) asserted power to compel such a removal without compensation, an assertion raising legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. As our hydroelectric infrastructure continues to age, these questions may again come to the forefront.