NYC opposes power plant near reservoir
City department that oversees Ashokan tells federal regulators that Premium Energy’s plan is ‘poorly conceived, inappropriate’
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has filed a formal objection with federal regulators to a California company’s proposal to create an underground hydroelectric power station on DEP land near the Ashokan Reservoir.
The plan by Premium Energy
Holdings of Walnut, Calif., has “several fatal flaws,” the city department said in its Thursday evening filing with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. The department, which oversees all of New York City’s upstate reservoirs, also said Premium should not be granted eminent-domain rights to the land near the Ashokan because it sits within New York state’s Catskill Park.
The land that Premium wants to use near the Ashokan Reservoir is “part of the Catskill Forest Pre
serve, for which sale, lease and development are prohibited under the New York Constitution,” the DEP’s filing with the energy commission states. “Under Section 21 of the FPA (Federal Power Act), the federal right of eminent domain would be unavailable to Premium Energy even in the remote possibility that the commission ever grants it a license. Accordingly, Premium Energy will never be able to gain control of those lands.”
Premium said in the 28page
application it submitted to FERC that it wants to create a 2,800-megawatt power station 200 to 300 feet below ground on one of three sites — two near state Route 28, and one on the north side of the Ashokan’s west basin. The station would be about 500 feet long, 125 feet wide and 150 feet high.
Of the electricity to be generated, 800 watts would be sent into the grid via Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp.’s substation on Hurley Avenue in the town of Ulster during 12-hour periods when demand is high, while the remainder would be used to keep the power station itself functioning.
The station would be powered by water from the Ashokan that first would be sent to a planned new reservoir. Premium originally was considering sites in West Shokan, Woodland Valley and the Greene County community of Lanesville to create the new reservoir, but state Sen. Michelle Hinchey, DSaugerties, said Thursday that the company has agreed to seek a different site because of public objections.
The city DEP’s 25-page filing with federal regulators says even if the commission gives Premium Energy the go-ahead to study siting a power plant, there would be no requirement for the
city to give Premium access to the land to conduct such a study.
The DEP also objects to the plan for a new, off-site reservoir to power the proposed Premium operation. The department said the new water body would siphon water from both the Ashokan Reservoir and Upper Esopus Creek, which enters the Ashokan at Boiceville, and would create additional turbidity in the Ashokan’s water and make its levels subject to electricity demand.
“Put simply,” the DEP filing said, “this is a poorly conceived, inappropriate project that should be
stopped before it can cause any damage to the water supply system or the environment, or the imposition of billions of dollars of incremental costs on New York [City] consumers for ... [a] filtration system” that could become necessary if the turbidity becomes unmanageable.
Kathy Nolan, senior research director for the environmental advocacy group Catskill Mountainkeeper, said Friday that she was encouraged by the city’s filing.
“If the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pragmatic in its approach, these comments from New York City ... should cause them either to reject this application ... or to send the applicant back to address in detail all the issues raised,” she said.
Nolan noted the DEP’s filing points to its longstanding support for hydroelectric power and its operation of hydroelectric stations at the Ashokan and Rondout reservoirs.
The DEP said in February, when Premium filed its application, that it was not notified in advance about the company’s plan. The proposal also caught government leaders in nearby towns off guard, and they since have voiced objections to the proposal.