A federal agency and an environmental advocate say Santee Cooper is trying to bully its way into a new federal license for its Marion-Moultrie lakes hydroelectric project.

Santee Cooper says it's doing what the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requires.

The dispute has surfaced as Santee Cooper completes its application for its 30-year license to run the $15 billion, 150,000-acre Marion-Moultrie lakes hydroelectric project. It is also applying for a state water quality certification considered critical to license approval.

Santee Cooper's license expires in 2006. The re-licensing process gives other agencies and the public a chance to argue with FERC, the license issuer, for changes in how the lakes and dams are managed.

At issue are environmental studies such as stream flow tests that the agencies study so they can argue for changes in how the dams discharge contents into rivers or allow for fish passage up and down stream. The agencies say Santee Cooper has ignored their requests or conducted the studies in-house without allowing the agencies to take part.

"Santee Cooper is behaving as if they aren't accountable to anyone. They seem to be ignoring their responsibility to the public and the state and federal agencies that regulate them. They need to realize they don't have a right to the river; they have a license," said Andrew Fahlund, vice president of American Rivers, a Washington, D.C.-based conservation group working with the Coastal Conservation League.

"We've essentially been locked out of (studies)," said Prescott Brownell, Atlantic fishery coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"The bottom line is this process is not going on in the cooperative manner that the vast majority of other (relicensing) processes in the country are," he said.

A Santee Cooper spokeswoman disagreed.

"Santee Cooper's obligation lies with FERC," said Laura Varn. "We have done or are doing all of the studies required by FERC. We're satisfying all the FERC requirements and within their timeline as well," she said. "Any entity can claim that studies need to be done."

The dispute comes as state lawmakers and Gov. Mark Sanford battle over whose appointees control the state-owned agency that is run in some ways as a private business. Sanford "absolutely is watching the (relicensing) process," said spokesman Will Folks. "Any issue that pops up we hear about it from all sides."

Water flow from the dams generates electric power. It also is critical to water quality and habitat in the lakes and the rivers above and below them. How water moves through the lakes affects everything from drinking water to estuary fisheries, in one way or another the life of nearly everyone in the Lowcountry.

FERC wants Santee Cooper to find the best balance in the conflicting uses of power production, natural resources, navigation, water quality, recreation and aesthetics.

Among other studies, the conservation group and federal agencies such as NOAA want to see if a fish lift installed at the Santee dam and more river flow returned to the Santee River would help restore natural habitats they say were lost when the electrical project cut the old Santee River in two.

"Let's make sure the issues that need to be addressed are addressed," Brownell said. For the studies that have been done, other agencies haven't been brought into the planning or field work, he said. "We have no reason to have confidence in the results."

Varn said that any issue regarding necessary studies is one between those agencies and FERC.

In an October 2004 letter, FERC responded to the company's license application by requiring more information on 10 items including the water quality and environmental concerns that the studies address, and set deadlines for that information. Varn described the information as volumes.

FERC also told the utility to consult with the agencies who had protested the application, and let them review the findings.

FERC had received all but one of those studies, said spokeswoman Celeste Miller on Tuesday. The remaining study, on stream flow testing, has a mid-year deadline. When all the material is received "we will determine if the information is what we need. We will be evaluating the service agencies' study requests to see what we feel is necessary."

The Santee River basin is considered the second largest river system on the East Coast. In 2000, the insurance replacement value of the project's two power stations, spillway and 41 miles of dams and dikes was $2.5 billion.

The works generate only about 1 percent of the electricity Santee Cooper produces but the generators are easier to start up and shut down than other power sources and help feed peak demands.

Relicensing is an odyssey of studies, findings, protests and resolutions that will take six or more years and for which Santee Cooper has budgeted $6 million. The process can become contentious. In a 29-page relicensing information packet supplied by FERC, six pages deal with dispute resolution.

Santee Cooper's last re-licensing, a 1976 effort, wasn't completed until 1979.