LIHI Staff

Organization: Low Impact Hydropower Institute

Fred Ayer, Executive Director has been involved with hydroelectric projects and FERC relicensing for nearly 30 years and has worked on over 75 hydro regulatory projects prior to joining the Low Impact Hydropower Institute as its Executive Director in June 2003.

Highlights of his work as a consultant include: assisting the Avista Corporation (Spokane, WA) in the successful collaborative relicensing of its 790 Mw Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge Projects on the Clark Fork River in Montana and Idaho; advising the Catawba-Wateree Relicensing Coalition in North and South Carolina in connection with their participation in an upcoming FERC relicensing; and leading training sessions for US Forest Service and National Park Service officials on FERC relicensing.

Other training-related activity includes speaking at FERC Outreach Sessions for Alternative Licensing Processes in nine states, presenting workshops on collaborative processes at the National Conservation Training Center's Hydropower Workshops in three states, lecturing regularly at a dam removal course offered by University of Wisconsin, and chairing an international panel at a 2001 hydropower conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

From 1983 through 1990 he served as Director of Environmental Affairs at the Bangor Hydro-Electric Company, where he was instrumental in developing the relicensing strategy for the 13 Mw West Enfield Project that included the removal of a dam in one river as mitigation for impacts on another.

Fred is a graduate of Olivet College where he majored in Art. He and his wife Elaine and their two dogs, Lucy and Emmy, live in Portland, Maine.