GLUE Member’s Report September 10, 2009

The GRDA is preparing a response to FERC regarding their recommended changes to the Grand Lake Shoreline Management Plan as submitted. I’ve been working with Representative Doug Cox in both analyzing and preparing an appropriate response. We’ve identified two of the recommendations as the potentially most damaging…most of the others we can live with. I’ll paste a summary at the end of this report of all the recommendations by the FERC staff for your review.

The two areas we’re most concerned with deal with shoreline reclassification and zoning.  One reclassifies most of the area around Grove and the west side of Monkey Island as sensitive. This would virtually eliminate development in these areas. For years, developers in Grove have envisioned a waterfront development in the Wolfe Creek/Carrie Bay areas around Grove. The plans call for a marina, shops, restaurants and other endeavors. The city of Grove has passed a resolution to oppose this change in classification. Obviously these plans would have little chance of succeeding if this recommendation is applied to the proposed smp.

The zoning recommendation calls for the establishment of more definition to the responsible growth areas identified by GRDA in the submitted plan. The feds want sub categories established to define some areas as residential only and others as being more suitable for development. Some of our members are in favor of some residential only areas. I really have more of a problem with how this achieved as opposed to actually having the sub categories. The original stakeholder working groups did this from maps and many of them weren’t even familiar with the areas they were classifying. I would not oppose this provision if there was a much more detailed approach with equal representation in the process.

Our plan calls for a formal response to FERC by the September 14^th deadline. We also plan to file an intervention with FERC that formally makes us a party to this action. Yesterday, Dr. Cox and I met with the Grand Lake Association board and they agreed to join us in this action along with the Grand Lake Chamber and the city of Grove. We are optimistic we will also be joined by the Marina Association and the Grand Lake Economic Council.

Dr Cox has been working the political side of the equation with the staffs of Inhofe, Boren and Coburn. He has also drafted a letter of his own to FERC, which I will attach for your review. Any of you wanting to submit your own letter to FERC, which I would encourage, could find some excellent ideas in his draft. Those letters should be addressed to:

Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

888 First Street,N.E., Room 1-A

Washington, D.C. 20426.

Please reference the project name and project number (P-1494-348) on all comments. Comments may be filed electronically via the Internet in lieu of paper. The Commission strongly encourages electronic filings. See 18CFR 385.2001(a)(1)(iii) and the instructions on the Commission’s website under the “eFiling” link. For further information, contact Brian Romanek at (202) 502-6175.

We’ll keep you posted

B. Proposed SMP With Staff-Recommended Modifications

After evaluating the proposed SMP, and comments from resource agencies another interested parties, we consider a number of changes to the plan to be necessary or appropriate. Specifically, the following modifications are recommended in the Environmental Analysis section.

1) Prohibit dredging activities in Wildlife Management areas. 

2) Develop, in consultation with FWS, USGS, and Oklahoma DWC, a provision for standardizing sediment sampling, sediment analysis for heavy metals and other constituents as determined to be necessary, and the use of the analysis results in the dredging application and permitting process at Grand Lake, to protect water quality.

3) Develop provisions for water quality monitoring in coves where “heavy boating” use occurs. The provisions would identify what constitutes heavy boating use in coves, the timing for initiating monitoring and the water quality parameters to be monitored, and the frequency and duration of monitoring. The provisions should be developed in consultation with FWS and Oklahoma DWC.

4) Require site-specific planning and analysis prior to new activities or Vegetation management within all areas FWS or Oklahoma DWC have identified as sensitive. This would specifically include evaluations of and-mitigation for effects on wetlands or other habitat for threatened, endangered, or sensitive species.

5) Develop, in consultation with FWS and Oklahoma DWC, provisions for quantifying the effects of permitted vegetation removal in all SMC areas and mitigating these effects through the enhancement or protection of riparian vegetation in other areas.

6) Within Responsible Growth-Wetlands Inventory, Stewardship, and Wildlife Management areas, and in all areas FWS or Oklahoma DWC have identified as sensitive, maintain a 35-foot-wide riparian-forest buffer similar to the areas’ naturally occurring vegetation. In areas where GRDA does not have jurisdiction over a full 35-foot buffer, maintain the maximum buffer within its jurisdiction and, as a component of the public education program, encourage adjacent landowners to maintain riparian forest characteristics in the remaining buffer width.

7)  Classify as Stewardship those areas in Wolf Creek, Carey Bay, and Monkey Island that contain wetland resources similar to those found in Drowning Creek, Duck Creek, and Horse Creek.

8)  In consultation with FWS and Oklahoma DWC, develop provisions, to be included in the SMP, for: (1) identifying existing wetlands potentially affected by proposed shoreline activities and evaluating their functions and values; (2) assessing the probable effects of proposed activities on wetlands; and (3) addressing adverse effects on wetlands, from permitted activities, through appropriate mitigation. To account for the mitigation of any wetlands impacts, GRDA should be required to annually file with the Commission, at the same time it files its annual fish and waterfowl management report, a wetland mitigation report providing detailed descriptions of: (1) the status of any planned, ongoing, and completed mitigation measures; and (2) documentation of any consultation on wetland mitigation with FWS and Oklahoma DWC.

 9)  Develop, in consultation with FWS and Oklahoma DWC, provisions for:(1) identifying wildlife habitats potentially affected by proposed shoreline activities and evaluating their functions and values; (2) assessing the probable effects of proposed activities on wildlife habitats; (3) addressing adverse effects on wildlife habitats, from permitted activities, through appropriate mitigation; ad (5) providing an annual wildlife mitigation report.

10)  Implement GRDA’s proposed annual surveys for bald eagle nesting activity and include appropriate consideration of this information during implementation of the SMP, and adherence to FWS’s national bald eagle management guidelines.

11) Revise the SMP to include information regarding measures to coordinate the SMP and recreation management plan, and associated management and monitoring measures, including provisions for monitoring boating-use density at the project, and coordinating future updates of the recreation management plan and SMP.

12) Revise the SMP to include sub-classifications and/or reclassification of the shoreline areas designated as Responsible Growth, to differentiate between more limited development (i.e., residential) and more intense development (i.e., multi-purpose/commercial), and to identify existing public recreational access areas and future proposed public recreational access areas at the project.

13) File a monitoring report with any proposed changes to the SMP, every 6 years, for Commission approval, after consultation with FWS, Oklahoma DWC, and interested stakeholders, beginning 6 years from the issuance of any order approving the SMP.

14)  File, for Commission approval, any proposed change to the approved shoreline management classifications.

C. No-action Alternative

Under the no-action alternative, the licensee’s proposed SMP would not be approved and the licensee would continue to manage the reservoir’s shoreline under its existing license conditions and Commission-approved plans.

Cox Letter Draft

As the State Representative for over 90% of the shoreline on Grand Lake O’er the Cherokees I am compelled to comment on the FERC Environmental Assessment (EA) of the Grand Lake Shoreline Management Plan.

   It seems as though FERC places more emphasis on the comments of governmental regulatory agencies (such as the Federal Wildlife Service and the Oklahoma Dept of Wildlife Conservation) than they do on comments from the huge number of local citizens that participated in the public hearings.  Those citizens are the ones whose lives will be affected.  What kind of democracy is that?

   That being said I believe that many points in your EA are acceptable to both local citizens and GRDA. Specifically your recommendations 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13 are acceptable to the vast majority of my constituents.

   Your recommendations numbers 6 and 11 cause the most concern to the citizens of Oklahoma.

   Your recommendation Number 6—“We recommend that the larger blocks of wetlands in the Wolf Creek, Cary Bay and Monkey Island areas be protected as Stewardship area, as recommended by FWS.”

   This is a bad recommendation because it would effectively eliminate any economic development in these areas of the fast-growing city of Grove and the Grove School District.  Our schools, county and local governments all need the increased ad-valorem values that the GRDA submitted plan would allow to occur.  Your recommendation will cripple our ability to provide quality education, emergency medical services, fire and police protection, and quality city and county roads to my constituents.  These areas are already adjacent to high use areas and are non-functional as “wet lands” due to high human traffic.  You have failed to differentiate “flood plains” from true “wetlands”.

   Your recommendation Number 11, dealing with land use classifications, essentially castrates the “two-tiered” classification system and essentially replaces it with the system proposed in the original and unacceptable Kleinschmidt Draft.

   In summary, while many of your recommendations are acceptable, I encourage you to:

1. Eliminate your recommendation 6 which, by crippling economic development, creates a hardship on Northeast Oklahoma.

2. Eliminate your recommendation 11. You should allow the classification system and maps submitted by GRDA which were developed using the democratic process the founding fathers of this great nation intended.

   Lastly, one only needs to come to this area of the lake to see that while our schools are bulging at the seams (we need the increased bonding capacity that economic development will bring), there are many signs of economic hardship.

   Many buildings in the city of Grove are vacant.  One of two golf courses on Monkey Island has been closed and is growing up in weeds.  A nearly completed high-rise condominium project at Port Duncan Resort on Monkey Island is standing empty in bankruptcy.  The previous lodge at Shangri-La Resort on Monkey Island is vacant and in shambles—half torn down while its replacement project was canceled due to the hard economic times.

   With these conditions, we do not need people behind a desk in Oklahoma City (OK Dept of Wildlife Conservation) telling people behind a desk in D.C. (U.S. Wildlife Service, and FERC) to make recommendations like your numbers 6 and 11 which adversely affect economic development in my House District.  You should listen (as did GRDA) to my constituents who are raising their children or spending their retirement years on the shores of Grand Lake.

Sincerely yours,

Doug Cox M.D.