Dan Buckingham is angry the federal government is considering a power corridor through his upstate New York community. He was doubly angry Tuesday that he had to travel nearly 140 miles to protest.
“This country needs a comprehensive energy policy. This is nothing more than a glorified extension cord,” said Buckingham, one of nearly two dozen Oneida County residents who traveled to Rochester to speak out against the proposed corridor at a U.S. Department of Energy public hearing.
“When they find they can’t bully us, they slap us in the face and insult us by refusing to even come listen to our concerns,” said Buckingham, an art professor who lives in Clayville, just south of Utica, along the route of a power-line project proposed by New York Regional Interconnect.
Buckingham was just one of many who took the Energy Department to task for not holding a hearing in the Utica area, which is in the middle of where the proposed corridor would run through New York. About 50 people attended the hearing.
The Energy Department has drawn two “national interest energy transmission corridors” — areas in which Washington officials could exercise eminent domain and approve new transmission lines over the objections of local and state authorities.
One would be located on the East Coast, covering a large swath of land that includes parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and all of New Jersey, Delaware and the District of Columbia. On the West Coast, a corridor has been proposed in southern California, Arizona, and Nevada.
The 2005 energy law establishing the electricity corridors was designed to relieve bottlenecks in the national power grid, decreasing the threat of blackouts like the one that swept from Ohio to New York City in 2003. However, critics say establishing the national corridors will make it easier — and cheaper — for power companies like New York Regional Interconnect to build power lines.
NYRI wants to build a 200- mile-long, high-voltage transmission line from Utica to the lower Hudson Valley but has met stiff opposition from local residents and elected officials.
“I know this country has an energy problem but how about more conservation, or build more local generating capacity. This will destroy our village,” said Karl Cehonski of Clayville, whose property would be cut in half by the NYRI line.
“I’ve lived in my home for 30 years. It’s a two-story Victorian home built in the 1860s. We’ve spent tons of money fixing it up. And now I have to worry about eminent domain,” said Cehonski, who was among two dozen Clayville residents who chartered a bus to attend the hearing.
Cehonski, a member of Upstate New York Citizens Alliance, a group that formed to oppose NYRI, said he took a day off from work.
“Not only do we have to travel two hours. It’s on a work day in the middle of the week. A lot of people can’t afford that,” Cehonski said.
A number of residents held signs with messages like “NYRI buys D.O.E.” and “$elling Upstate New York — No Power Lines.” Others wore T-shirts and buttons announcing their opposition.
The group also brought a mock power-line tower base constructed of plywood that they put up outside the hearing. The 16-foot-high structure — the same size as a real concrete base — read “Imagine this — No power lines.”
The hearing Tuesday was the third of four scheduled for the eastern corridor. Previous hearings were held last month in Arlington, Va., and New York City. Another is scheduled for today in Pittsburgh. Rochester was selected for Tuesday’s hearing because it sits in an arm that swings to the west off the main corridor, said Marshall Whitenton, an Energy Department official.
Establishing energy corridors does not mean the endorsement of any particular transmission projects, Whitenton said. The department is deciding whether the corridors are needed, and if so, where their boundaries should be drawn, he said.
The 60-day comment period ends July 6. After that, DOE staff will make its recommendations.
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