The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “exceeded its authority” in approving an arrangement that issued a 50-year operating license to Exelon, and did not follow the process laid out by the Clean Water Act, a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That license is now void, pending an appeal by the power company, now operating under Constellation Energy.
The Conowingo Dam, a massive hydroelectric facility in northeast Maryland dating back to 1928, traps nitrogen and phosphorus in the sediment in a reservoir behind its turbines. Over the past 100 years, that Now Maryland has a new chance to either hold Constellation Energy to the 2018 plan or come up with new environmental standards.
The environmental advocates say that by trapping those pollutants and then dumping them all at once during storms, the dam makes the problem significantly worse. Advocates also say Constellation could avoid the steep payments by dredging the reservoir, which would cost about $41 million a year. But they agree the problem goes beyond Constellation, to pollution from states up the Eastern Seaboard.
That's great since they are doing it in the name of environmental conservation