2628 Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 12 / Thursday, January 18, 2018 / Notices 

1The appendices referenced in this notice will 

not appear in the Federal Register. Copies of 

appendices were sent to all those receiving this 

notice in the mail and are available at www.ferc.gov 

using the link called ‘‘eLibrary’’ or from the 

Commission’s Public Reference Room, 888 First 

Street NE, Washington, DC 20426, or call (202) 502– 

8371. For instructions on connecting to eLibrary, 

refer to the last page of this notice. 

under section 15(a)(1) of the FPA is 

renewed automatically without further 

order or notice by the Commission, 

unless the Commission orders 

otherwise. 

If the projects are not subject to 

section 15 of the FPA, notice is hereby 

given that the licensee, Algonquin 

Power (Beaver Falls), LLC, is authorized 

to continue operation of the Upper 

Beaver Falls and Lower Beaver Falls 

Hydroelectric Projects, until such time 

as the Commission acts on its license 

application. 

Dated: January 11, 2018. 

Kimberly D. Bose, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2018–00751 Filed 1–17–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6717–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission 

[Docket No. CP18–24–000] 

Steel Reef Pipelines US LLC; Notice of 

Intent To Prepare an Environmental 

Assessment for the Proposed 

Saskatchewan Pipeline Project and 

Request for Comments on 

Environmental Issues 

The staff of the Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission (FERC or 

Commission) will prepare an 

environmental assessment (EA) that will 

discuss the environmental impacts of 

the South Saskatchewan Pipeline 

Project involving construction and 

operation of facilities by Steel Reef 

Pipelines US LLC (Steel Reef) in Burke 

County, North Dakota. The Commission 

will use this EA in its decision-making 

process to determine whether the 

project is in the public convenience and 

necessity. 

This notice announces the opening of 

the scoping process the Commission 

will use to gather input from the public 

and interested agencies on the project. 

You can make a difference by providing 

us with your specific comments or 

concerns about the project. Your 

comments should focus on the potential 

environmental effects, reasonable 

alternatives, and measures to avoid or 

lessen environmental impacts. Your 

input will help the Commission staff 

determine what issues they need to 

evaluate in the EA. To ensure that your 

comments are timely and properly 

recorded, please send your comments so 

that the Commission receives them in 

Washington, DC on or before February 

10, 2018. 

If you sent comments on this project 

to the Commission before the opening of 

this docket on December 8, 2017, you 

will need to file those comments in 

Docket No. CP18–24–000 to ensure they 

are considered as part of this 

proceeding. 

This notice is being sent to the 

Commission’s current environmental 

mailing list for this project. State and 

local government representatives should 

notify their constituents of this 

proposed project and encourage them to 

comment on their areas of concern. 

Steel Reef provided landowners with 

a fact sheet prepared by the FERC 

entitled An Interstate Natural Gas 

Facility On My Land? What Do I Need 

To Know? This fact sheet addresses a 

number of typically asked questions, 

including the use of eminent domain 

and how to participate in the 

Commission’s proceedings. It is also 

available for viewing on the FERC 

website (www.ferc.gov). 

Public Participation 

For your convenience, there are three 

methods you can use to submit your 

comments to the Commission. The 

Commission encourages electronic filing 

of comments and has expert staff 

available to assist you at (202) 502–8258 

or FercOnlineSupport@ferc.gov. Please 

carefully follow these instructions so 

that your comments are properly 

recorded. 

(1) You can file your comments 

electronically using the eComment 

feature on the Commission’s website 

(www.ferc.gov) under the link to 

Documents and Filings. This is an easy 

method for submitting brief, text-only 

comments on a project; 

(2) You can file your comments 

electronically by using the eFiling 

feature on the Commission’s website 

(www.ferc.gov) under the link to 

Documents and Filings. With eFiling, 

you can provide comments in a variety 

of formats by attaching them as a file 

with your submission. New eFiling 

users must first create an account by 

clicking on eRegister. If you are filing a 

comment on a particular project, please 

select Comment on a Filing as the filing 

type; or 

(3) You can file a paper copy of your 

comments by mailing them to the 

following address. Be sure to reference 

the project docket number (C18–24–000) 

with your submission: Kimberly D. 

Bose, Secretary, Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street 

NE, Room 1A, Washington, DC 20426. 

Summary of the Proposed Project 

Steel Reef’s proposed Saskatchewan 

Pipeline Project, referred to as the 

Border Crossing Facilities in its 

application, includes a 250-foot-long 

10.75-inch-outside-diameter pipeline 

along with aboveground facilities 

including a metering facility, a remote 

telemetry unit, and a pig trap launcher. 

The facilities are part of the southern 

end of Steel Reef’s planned 2.2-milelong 10.75-inch-outside-diameter South 

Saskatchewan Access Pipeline (SSA 

Pipeline) it plans to build connecting 

gathering facilities owned by Petro 

Harvester Oil & Gas, LLC near Portal, 

North Dakota to an interconnection with 

an existing natural gas processing plant 

owned by Steel Reef Infrastructure 

Corporation near North Portal in 

Saskatchewan, Canada. Steel Reef states 

that the Saskatchewan Pipeline Project’s 

facilities would, as part of the SSA 

Pipeline, permit the transport of up to 

30 million standard cubic feet per day 

of sour natural gas gathered from 

existing oil wells owned and operated 

by Petro Harvester Oil & Gas, LLC (Petro 

Harvester) within the Burke County 

region of North Dakota. 

Steel Reef requests certification by 

July 2, 2018, and expects to perform its 

construction activities in a 30-day 

period. 

The general location of the project 

facilities is shown in appendix 1.1

Land Requirements for Construction 

Steel Reef would limit its 

construction activities to 0.75 acres of 

agricultural land, comprised of 0.35 

acres of new permanent pipeline rightof-way and 0.40 acres of temporary 

workspace. The new permanent 

pipeline right-of-way width would be 65 

feet. Steel Reef would restore the 

temporary right-of-way to preabandonment conditions. An 0.14 acre 

portion of the permanent right-of-way 

would overlap the Petro Harvester lease 

where Steel Reef would have a shared 

land use agreement. None of the route 

would be co-located with other existing 

utilities, roads or other infrastructure. 

The EA Process 

The National Environmental Policy 

Act (NEPA) requires the Commission to 

take into account the environmental 

impacts that could result from an action 

whenever it considers the issuance of a 

Certificate of Public Convenience and 


sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 12 / Thursday, January 18, 2018 / Notices 2629 

2We, us, and our refer to the environmental staff 

of the Commission’s Office of Energy Projects. 

3The Council on Environmental Quality 

regulations addressing cooperating agency 

responsibilities are at Title 40, Code of Federal 

Regulations, Part 1501.6. 

4The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s 

regulations are at Title 36, Code of Federal 

Regulations, Part 800. Those regulations define 

historic properties as any prehistoric or historic 

district, site, building, structure, or object included 

in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register 

of Historic Places. 

Necessity. NEPA also requires us 2 to 

discover and address concerns the 

public may have about proposals. This 

process is referred to as ‘‘scoping.’’ The 

main goal of the scoping process is to 

focus the analysis in the EA on the 

important environmental issues. By this 

notice, the Commission requests public 

comments on the scope of the issues to 

address in the EA. We will consider all 

filed comments during the preparation 

of the EA. 

In the EA we will discuss impacts that 

could occur as a result of the 

construction and operation of the 

proposed project under these general 

headings: 

• Geology and soils; 

• land use; 

• water resources, fisheries, and 

wetlands; 

• cultural resources; 

• vegetation and wildlife; 

• air quality and noise; 

• endangered and threatened species; 

• public safety; and 

• cumulative impacts. 

We will also evaluate reasonable 

alternatives to the proposed project or 

portions of the project, and make 

recommendations on how to lessen or 

avoid impacts on the various resource 

areas. 

The EA will present our independent 

analysis of the issues. The EA will be 

available in the public record through 

eLibrary. Depending on the comments 

received during the scoping process, we 

may also publish and distribute the EA 

to the public for an allotted comment 

period. We will consider all comments 

on the EA before making our 

recommendations to the Commission. 

To ensure we have the opportunity to 

consider and address your comments, 

please carefully follow the instructions 

in the Public Participation section, 

beginning on page 2. 

With this notice, we are asking 

agencies with jurisdiction by law and/ 

or special expertise with respect to the 

environmental issues of this project to 

formally cooperate with us in the 

preparation of the EA.3 Agencies that 

would like to request cooperating 

agency status should follow the 

instructions for filing comments 

provided under the Public Participation 

section of this notice. 

Consultations Under Section 106 of the 

National Historic Preservation Act 

In accordance with the Advisory 

Council on Historic Preservation’s 

implementing regulations for section 

106 of the National Historic 

Preservation Act, we are using this 

notice to initiate consultation with the 

applicable State Historic Preservation 

Office (SHPO), and to solicit their views 

and those of other government agencies, 

interested Indian tribes, and the public 

on the project’s potential effects on 

historic properties.4 We will define the 

project-specific Area of Potential Effects 

(APE) in consultation with the SHPO as 

the project develops. On natural gas 

facility projects, the APE at a minimum 

encompasses all areas subject to ground 

disturbance (examples include 

construction right-of-way, contractor/ 

pipe storage yards, compressor stations, 

and access roads). Our EA for this 

project will document our findings on 

the impacts on historic properties and 

summarize the status of consultations 

under section 106. 

Environmental Mailing List 

The environmental mailing list 

includes federal, state, and local 

government representatives and 

agencies; elected officials; 

environmental and public interest 

groups; Native American Tribes; other 

interested parties; and local libraries 

and newspapers. This list also includes 

all affected landowners (as defined in 

the Commission’s regulations) who are 

potential right-of-way grantors, whose 

property may be used temporarily for 

project purposes, or who own homes 

within certain distances of aboveground 

facilities, and anyone who submits 

comments on the project. We will 

update the environmental mailing list as 

the analysis proceeds to ensure that we 

send the information related to this 

environmental review to all individuals, 

organizations, and government entities 

interested in and/or potentially affected 

by the proposed project. 

If we publish and distribute the EA, 

copies of the EA will be sent to the 

environmental mailing list for public 

review and comment. If you would 

prefer to receive a paper copy of the 

document instead of the CD version or 

would like to remove your name from 

the mailing list, please return the 

attached Information Request (appendix 

2). 

Becoming an Intervenor 

In addition to involvement in the EA 

scoping process, you may want to 

become an intervenor which is an 

official party to the Commission’s 

proceeding. Intervenors play a more 

formal role in the process and are able 

to file briefs, appear at hearings, and be 

heard by the courts if they choose to 

appeal the Commission’s final ruling. 

An intervenor formally participates in 

the proceeding by filing a request to 

intervene. Instructions for becoming an 

intervenor are in the Document-less 

Intervention Guide under the e-filing 

link on the Commission’s website. 

Motions to intervene are more fully 

described at http://www.ferc.gov/ 

resources/guides/how-to/intervene.asp. 

Additional Information 

Additional information about the 

project is available from the 

Commission’s Office of External Affairs, 

at (866) 208–FERC, or on the FERC 

website at www.ferc.gov using the 

‘‘eLibrary’’ link. Click on the eLibrary 

link, click on ‘‘General Search’’ and 

enter the docket number, excluding the 

last three digits in the Docket Number 

field (i.e., CP18–24–000). Be sure you 

have selected an appropriate date range. 

For assistance, please contact FERC 

Online Support at FercOnlineSupport@

ferc.gov or toll free at (866) 208–3676, or 

for TTY, contact (202) 502–8659. The 

eLibrary link also provides access to the 

texts of formal documents issued by the 

Commission, such as orders, notices, 

and rulemakings. 

In addition, the Commission offers a 

free service called eSubscription which 

allows you to keep track of all formal 

issuances and submittals in specific 

dockets. This can reduce the amount of 

time you spend researching proceedings 

by automatically providing you with 

notification of these filings, document 

summaries, and direct links to the 

documents. Go to www.ferc.gov/docsfiling/esubscription.asp. 

Finally, public sessions or site visits 

will be posted on the Commission’s 

calendar located at www.ferc.gov/ 

EventCalendar/EventsList.aspx along 

with other related information. 

Dated: January 11, 2018. 

Kimberly D. Bose, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2018–00745 Filed 1–17–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6717–01–P 


sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES