The Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, with assistance from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the Department of Marine Resources, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Governor's Energy Office and other state agencies as needed, shall develop, subject to the Maine Administrative Procedure Act, Title 5, chapter 375, a comprehensive river resource management plan for each watershed with a hydropower project licensed under the Federal Power Act or to be licensed under the Federal Power Act. These plans must provide a basis for state agency comments, recommendations and permitting decisions and at a minimum include, as applicable, minimum flows, impoundment level regimes, upstream and downstream fish passage, maintenance of aquatic habitat and habitat productivity, public access and recreational opportunities. These plans must update, complement and, after public notice, comment and hearings in the watershed, be adopted as components of the State's comprehensive rivers management plan. A comprehensive river resource management plan adopted under this section is a major substantive rule as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2-A. [PL 2021, c. 675, §1 (AMD).]
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