Purpose of investigations; limitation. Except as permitted under § 11.14, the Commission will conduct an investigation to obtain information for establishing headwater benefits charges under this subpart. The Commission will investigate and determine charges for a project downstream from a non-Federal headwater project only if the parties are unable to agree to a settlement and one of the parties requests the Commission to determine charges.

Notification. The Commission will notify each downstream project owner and each headwater project owner when it initiates an investigation under this section, and the period of project operations to be studied will be specified. An investigation will continue until a final charge has been established for all years studied in the investigation.

Jurisdictional objections. If any project owner wishes to object to the assessment of a headwater benefits charge on jurisdictional grounds, such objection must:

Be raised within 30 days after the notice of the investigation is issued; and

State in detail the grounds for its objection.

Investigations. (1) For any downstream project for which a final charge pursuant to an investigation has never been established, the Commission will conduct an initial investigation to determine a final charge.

The Commission may, for good cause shown by a party or on its own motion, initiate a new investigation of a river basin to determine whether, because of any change in the hydrology, project development, or other characteristics of the river basin that effects headwater benefits, it should:

Establish a new final charge to replace a final charge previously established under § 11.17(b)(5); or

Revise any variable of the headwater benefits formula that has become a constant in calculating a final charge.

Scope of investigations. (i) The Commission will establish a final charge pursuant to an investigation based on information available to the Commission through the annual data submission requirements of § 11.16, if such information is adequate to establish a reasonably accurate final charge.

If the information available to the Commission is not sufficient to provide a reasonably accurate calculation of the final charge, the Commission will request additional data and conduct any studies, including studies of the hydrology of the river basin and project operations, that it determines necessary to establish the charge.