Our power, their dollars

Back in the 1950s, to settle a vehement argument between Robert Moses and local officials over who would build and operate a new hydropower plant near Niagara Falls, Congress settled the issue by saying the state could have the plant, but industries in Western New York would get more than one-third of what was generated there.

That approach worked well until earlier this decade, when a number of large power customers shuttered their plants and other companies lost part of their allocations because they shed jobs, a major criteria for getting the power in the first place. That left the New York Power Authority with nearly a quarter of the region's share of the low-cost hydropower.

As I report today in The Buffalo News, the authority, working with local economic development officials, were slow to find takers for the power, and instead sold it on the open market at a big profit. I've calculated the return, through the end of this year, at $161 million. Little of the money has come back to Western New York.

Instead, the authority, under orders from the the governor and state legislature, has spent about half of it to subsidize the energy bills of some 700 companies statewide, few of them from WNY. The other half has gone into, among other things, authority operations, including a gold-plated bureaucracy. Read this for details.

These profits are part of the reason why the Niagara Power Project, the nation's second-largest hydropower plant, has posted record earnings the past three years. The plant provides the authority with most of its net revenue.

"It's their cash cow," said George Maziarz, chairman of the state Senate Energy Committee.

He and a number of other local officials are fed up with the situation, saying the money needs to remain in the community and the criteria used to allocate power needs to be amended. While the authority has found takers for almost all of the unused power, it's going to take up to three years for all of it to be put to use, and in the meantime, the authority will keep selling what's unused. Ditto for any power that becomes available.

To follow up today's story, this blog will post interviews the balance of the week with officials with varying degrees of influence to do something about this. On tap are Maziarz, Congressman Brian Higgins, Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and D. Patrick Curley, who represents WNY on the authority's governing board. I'll start tomorrow with Dyster.

Comments

[chris]

I am not surprised that the Power authority has sold excess power to other companies outside of WNY. Why not? Our local government and business leaders for the most part are timid, short-sighted, and incompetent.

WNY suffers because the majority populace has trusted ill equipped leaders and refuses to vote out political leadership that is failing the region tremendously!

If I as a resident of no means understands this...then why are we surprised that the governor and other state leaders take advantage of our horrific leadership?

WNY has been its own worst enemy...both the population at-large and the political leaders bound forever to 1950s union days....

[Snidley Whiplash]

The leadership of Grand Island missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to secure for her citizens a steady stream of development funding over the next fifty years through their failure to be a direct part of the New York Power Authority (NYPA) relicensing settlement. Now we can share with our readers how this came about and how a true hero came to the rescue and saved the leadership of the Island from themselves.

Early on in the relicensing process various municipalities recognized the opportunity to be compensated for the harm done to them by virtue of the existence of the Niagara Power Project. Grand Island was not so prescient.

In Niagara County municipalities such as the City of Niagara Falls, the Village of Lewiston and the Towns of Niagara, Lewiston, and various school boards formed the Niagara Power Coalition and settled with the NYPA for ~$5 million per year for 50 years with an upfront payment of $8 million and 25MW of power. In addition to the aforementioned, State Parks and other State agencies, the Erie Canal Harbor Restoration Corp, and Erie County (thanks in large part to Brian Higgins) secured a total of $450 million over 50 years. No funds dedicated to Grand Island exclusively were secured.

How a municipality that is completely surrounded by the Niagara River dropped the ball on the defining issue of their time is breathtaking. Grand Island is dependent upon its natural landscape for its attractiveness with 80% of its residents having stated in a survey that they live on the Island for its natural landscape. The Island suffers from erosion and wildlife degradation due to fluctuations of the water level of the river by the power project. Annually fish are caught between the shore and ice that forms along the shore as the water level drops because the power project pulls more water in winter.

Perhaps you ask: Maybe the settlement was a secret and the leadership of the Island couldn’t foresee the opportunity before them to enter into a settlement agreement with NYPA? But it was common knowledge that the 50 year relicensing agreement was coming up – it was written about extensively in the Newspaper. Moreover, environmental groups on the Island were joining the settlement talks as part of the Niagara Relicesing Environmental Coalition and informing the town leadership of the opportunities.

We can only speculate on how public officials who are sworn to act in the citizen’s best interest and exercise their fiduciary responsibility could have failed to act in this regard. One school of thought is that they come to the job with a limited intellectual curiosity and capacity to understand complex issues. Nor do they appear to have an ability to listen to and value diverse points of view, and, therefore, they surround themselves with likeminded individuals. Perhaps it is just hubris. Oddly, given the unique fondness citizens of the Island have for their environment, the Island’s leadership discounts information presented to them by conservationists. Champions of the environment are dismissed as kooky.

And so Grand Island’s natural landscape, including what the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation has described as “critically imperiled habitat,” continues to be under the threat of impulsive development. Master plans and zoning codes are routinely ignored or discounted as acre-by-acre and bit-by-bit the Island is transformed to just another ubiquitous suburban landscape.

The reader may now be wondering who the hero is that came in and saved the Grand Island leadership from themselves? There’s actually more than one hero in our story. Firstly, Assemblymember Hoyt fought hard to channel NYPA settlement dollars through State managed entities, and, who has announced just this past week that some funds to help Grand Island rehabilitate a dilapidated facility into Fisherman’s Park have been secured; the Greenway Commission led by Chairman Kresse are heros as they are reviewing projects for consistency to the Greenway plan; and lastly, the leaders of the State agencies who are administering the settlement proceeds are heros. The citizens of Grand Island can be heros too by attending meetings, not letting officials from the Town intimidate them, by becoming more informed, and by holding their leadership accountable for their performance – or lack thereof.

[Stephen Fitzmaurice]

I was at a luncheon today and Councilmember David Franczyk stated that we were in the post industrial age. However, when it comes to low cost power, we're stuck in the industrial age!
In the city of Buffalo we are within the magical 30 miles of the Niagara Power Project. Yet most commercial customers are paying electrical rates 60-70% above the national average for electricity! We're upside down.
We have some great employers in the service industry in Buffalo. Two of the area's largest private sector employers HSBC Bank USA and M&T Bank employ thousands of people in good paying jobs. Yet because they're not in manufacturing, they nor their landlord don't qualify for low cost power. We haven't recognized that much of our manufacturing base has moved offshore.
Another problem is that economic development people like to talk about their "wins." The problem is, they pick the winners and losers. If a company isn't a manufacturer and they're not producing a certain number of jobs then they don't qualify. What are we doing to retain our current job base? Why do we only bring out the low cost power when a company threatens to leave or when one is considering coming here? Why can't we have a level playing field? In fact, let's promote regionalism at the same time.
Allocate a block of low cost power for commercial customers in the city of Buffalo such that their electrical rates are 20% BELOW the national average. Instead of paying $.14 to .16 per KWH they would pay $.06 - .08 per KWH. Then anyone setting up a law firm, a bank, an accounting firm etc. in the city gets cheap power. Abundant, inexpensive hydro powers is our regional asset, we shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it. In addition, it shouldn't be limited to industries that happen to meet the magical criteria.

[Comino Reality]

What don't I get about being taxed to build power plants to supply electricity and then seeing the plants selling the electricity to corporations that sell the electricity to my neighbors and myself?

Why do we as tax payers in WNY pay anything for electricity? Electricity that was created from a power project paid with our taxes and located in our community and which effects the micro climate up and down the Niagara River should be free electricity to WNY CITIZENS.

Why does Marshawn Lynch get seperate special justice? Why do corporations get special tax cuts that we the people don't get? Why do we pay taxes to build power plants for corporations? Why do we pay for electricity that was sold from the Niagara Power Project to Niagara Mohawk? Why is power that comes from a power plant the government paid for costing citiizens of WNY so much? Why do people in other states have lower electricity bills than WNY's do.

Redevelope WNY and make electricity for WNY citizens the lowest in cost in the U.S.A.

I agree with Congressman Higgins that profits from the Niagara Power Plant should also be reinvested into WNY wind and solar energy production projects.

But I repeat why should WNY citizens pay higher electric bills? Why? The discounting of electricity should be for those who pay the taxes and not for private corporations who are being enriched by our taxes for a product they did not produce.

[just brilliant]

Yeah that'll really promote conservation.

"Electricity that was created from a power project paid with our taxes and located in our community and which effects the micro climate up and down the Niagara River should be free electricity to WNY CITIZENS."

He doesn't, by the way.

"Why does Marshawn Lynch get seperate special justice?"

[Edgar]

"Why do we as tax payers in WNY pay anything for electricity?"

Same reason we have to pay to play in the parks we paid for, that volenteers have to clean up.

Same reason we pay to drive on the Thruway we paid for (and the pleasure boaters with real nice boats).

Same reason we pay more for gasoline.

Same reason we pay more for natural gas.

Same reason we pay more for water.

For the right of those deserving few, with connections, to get more than what they truely deserve.

That's the "New York" way.

[Comino Reality]

Another question has the coal burning recapture technology been proven to work that the Governor is promoting in Jamestown?

Or is this more of burning a pound of coal to produce a pound of coal in the air?

Is the coal recapture residue toxic that is being buried under ground and is this coal residue any threat to the water table?

I don't believe that the Chinese government is earnestly trying to be more environmetally friendly by building a new coal burning plant each week but instead contributing to higher levels of carbon and mercury pollution that ends up in the Pacific and as far away as California.

[Mike Syposs]

I love being a Western New Yorker, and can't imagine ever leaving. I'm 31 years old and almost all of my friends have left this area. They love it too, but weren't lucky enough to find the good jobs that they have found elsewhere. Those of us that stay here do so because we love our communities. We put up with the lack of funds, the state government corruption, the local government corruption, the oversights, the undersights (sic), and the scandals.
To put it bluntly, we have been tricked. We have been tricked into believing that being a New Yorker is something that is good for us. That being a New Yorker is something that gives us things we otherwise wouldn't have. We are wrong. Being Western New Yorkers is what makes us who we are. But I am not, nor will I ever consider myself to be, a "New Yorker". A "New Yorker" is someone who lives downstate and feeds off the hard work that the west part of the state does for them. A "New Yorker" is someone who lives downstate and feeds off the natural resources that the west part of the state hands to them for a pittance.
They think that it's easy to pull a fast one on us. With each of these Buffalo News articles about the corruption of the New York Power Authority, I hope that it opens our eyes to what advantages are being stolen from us, and what disadvantages are being forced upon us by being part of the state of New York.
Back when the Erie Canal was created, it provided great wealth for downstate families. For many years, the canal provided a symbiotic relationship between the "up" and "down" parts of this state. With the advent of commercial delivery through vast highway networks and air flight, the use of our great canal dwindled and died.
From that time on, the symbiotic relationship was gone. Slowly and steadily, Western New York lost out. It lost population, wealth, and talent. The downstate was able to maintain their vast enterprise. Without a counterbalance, they have been suckling all that they can get from us for years.

They impose upon us their politics and their way of thinking. We are a group of working class communities that have fallen victim countless times to the manufacturing bust. Our communities should be transitioning to a new mode, with tax incentives and lucrative electricity savings for new businesses. The albatross of the New York City/Albany tag team keeps us from performing this transition. They impose taxes, impose ridiculous governing rules, and take our natural and intellectual resources -- all for their own gain.
I'm sick of it! I love this community; it hurts to see it suffer so much. I will never call myself a New Yorker. I am a Western New Yorker, and that is nothing like a New Yorker.
If we were to break from the New York City and Albany oligarchy, we will have a bright future. If we were to become the state of "West New York", we could control our own future. We would hold a vast resource, which produces more electricity and more profit than any other hydroelectric plant.
Without the stranglehold of big state politics and their bloated policies, we would be free to grow into something great.
Our local politics would become state politics, because our state would be close to local communities. Our state politics would become county politics, because our counties would be close to the capital. This would provide a solid foundation of checks and balances that keep corruption out.

These checks and balances have been sorely missing. Albany is so far away, it is easy for corruption to go unnoticed. Not to mention the corruption of Albany itself is disgusting. Furthermore, downstate benefits when upstate governances remain corrupt, since it helps them take from us what is rightfully ours. It is therefore not in the interest of New York State to prevent local corruption. Since it is not in their interest, it will never happen while we are still a part of New York State.

By partitioning from a clearly distinct set of values, Western New Yorkers would be in a position to attract businesses and talent. By becoming our own state, Western New Yorkers would be able to focus on providing a government that is effective and holds values instead of corruption. We would gain our own seats in the United States Congress, and have a direct voice in Washington to look out for our special, local needs.

Citizens of Western New York rise up, you have nothing to lose but your taxes!