BUCKS CREEK HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT
City of Santa Clara
EN2/SEA is supporting the City of Santa Clara on CEQA compliance and strategic guidance in support of relicensing the Bucks Creek Hydroelectric Project under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Integrated Licensing Process (ILP). The City is serving as the lead agency under CEQA for the project and EN2/SEA staff are supporting the City in this role by developing the CEQA document for the project (a CEQA Supplement), providing CEQA process and technical services, regulatory advice, public noticing, and strategic guidance throughout all steps and activities associated with both CEQA and the ILP. Compliance with CEQA is necessary to support the future discretionary action of the City of Santa Clara City Council, which is acceptance of the new license issued by FERC for the continued operation and maintenance of the hydroelectric project.
The CEQA Supplement itself is a supplement to the NEPA documents prepared by FERC for relicensing of the project. The environmental analysis provided in the CEQA Supplement completes the analysis of potential impacts of the Bucks Creek Project by fully analyzing those resource areas required by CEQA that were not analyzed under NEPA, and by identifying the level of significance of all potential impacts resulting from continued operation and maintenance of the project under a new FERC license.