In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States government, through the Army Corps of Engineers and over the objections of the Seneca Nation, forced the removal of Seneca families, homes, and communities off their treaty-protected lands, and built Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania. The federal government granted private utility companies the license to develop and produce electricity from the ironically named “Seneca” Pumped Storage Project at Kinzua Dam. The Dam and the Pumped Storage Project prevent the free flow of the river through the Seneca Nation and manipulates on a daily basis, the water over one-third of the Seneca’s Allegany Territory, or approximately 10,000 acres.

Over the last fifty years, the United States government, and the privately held power companies that have held the Seneca Pumped Storage Project license, have reaped significant benefits, financial and otherwise. The Seneca Nation and its people have borne all the burdens of this development. The 10,000 acres of the Nation’s Territory that was flooded to make way for the impoundment were the most productive subsistence and agricultural lands of the Nation’s Allegany Territory. The Seneca were forcibly relocated, and the government burned their homes, schools, and churches. Significant cultural, sacred and ceremonial sites were flooded, including a Longhouse and burial grounds.

The citizens of the Seneca Nation have suffered profound cultural, economic and environmental harms from the federal government’s unilateral taking of their homes, lands, and river to construct and operate Kinzua Dam and the Pumped Storage Project. The federal government’s actions comprise a shameful episode in American history, and have significantly harmed the Seneca Nation’s treaty rights, including its reserved water rights, to the pecuniary benefit of downstream interests, including the current licensee of the Project.

The Seneca Nation’s treaty rights, including its reserved water rights in the Allegheny River, are recognized in the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty. These treaty rights include the natural flow of the stretch of the Allegheny River within the Seneca Nation’s Territory.

The Nation has never conveyed any portion of its rights for the development of hydropower. The Nation has never received any compensation or share of the benefits, for the use of its rights to generate hydroelectric power. The current licensee did not obtain the rights necessary to operate the Seneca Pumped Storage Project.

On November 30, 2010, the Seneca Nation announced it has submitted its notice and application documents (Notification of Intent (NOI), the Pre-Application Document (PAD), and proposed permits) to apply for the license to operate the Seneca Pumped Storage Project (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Project No. 2280), pursuant to the requirements set forth by FERC in 18 C.F.R. §5.6. The current 50-year license for the Seneca Project will expire on November 30, 2015.

The Federal Power Commission (FPC) issued its first license for operation of the Seneca Pumped Storage Project on December 28, 1965, jointly to the Pennsylvania Electric Company and the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company. Presently, the license holder is FirstEnergy Generation Corp., through a transfer approved in 2001.

The Seneca Pumped Storage Project is described as a pumped storage hydroelectric power generation facility with an authorized production capacity of 450 megawatts (MW), generating electricity with the water of the Allegheny River by making use of Kinzua Dam and its Allegheny Reservoir impoundment on the Seneca Nation Allegany Territory. The project consists of a lower reservoir (the Allegheny Reservoir on Nation lands and waters), an upper reservoir, two reversible pump-turbine generator units, one conventional turbine-generator unit, associated water intakes, conduits, and discharge facilities, a powerhouse, transmission lines, and the lands affected by the facilities.

For more information, please visit: http://www.senecaproject.com.