|
Feb 28 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Cory Nealon
Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
A second company has emerged in the race to build hydroelectric dams in Felts Mills and Great Bend. Erie Boulevard is a subsidiary of Brookfield Power Corp., Toronto, which is the former Brascan Corp. If FERC approves the amendment, it will wipe out the plans of Black River Felts Mills LLC, which filed papers with the federal agency in November to acquire exclusive rights to study the same breached dams. The company is a subsidiary of Black River Energy LLC, Charlotte, N.C., which operates the 55-megawatt cogeneration steam plant on Fort Drum. Both Erie Boulevard and Black River are planning similar projects -- two dams capable of producing a little more than 12 megawatts of power. Building the dams would create steady construction work for at least two years and a few long-term jobs maintaining the plants, but the power won't stay local. Instead, either company will sell it to National Grid, which will distribute it throughout its grid network, which lights up homes throughout the Northeast. Both companies may seek a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, which would limit what local municipalities collect in taxes. Both want to finance their projects with state and federal tax incentives. That opportunity has been buoyed by Gov. George E. Pataki's goal to increase the amount of renewable energy bought by New Yorkers to 25 percent by 2013. And both have said they're willing to work with the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, which wants to build a pedestrian trail between the sites of the proposed dams. A phone call to public relations at National Grid, which owns the breached dams and 586 adjacent acres, was not returned Monday. Assuming Erie Boulevard files its application this spring, FERC is expected to decide this summer who'll be given a shot at the project. Because it needs only to amend an existing license, Erie Boulevard officials say they'd have a two-year head start on Black River. Jon D. Elmer, general manager of Erie Boulevard's Lake Ontario division, said the company would start building later this year or early 2007 and wrap up in the summer of 2008 at the latest. The company, whose Black River dams stretch from Deferiet to the city of Watertown, already has most of the information it needs for the project, he said. Black River, because it has more preliminary site work to do, would start building in 2009 and likely finish two years later. However, the company's vice president, Steven Courtney, sees that as an advantage. "We think our approach is better because we'll have more time to approach the community," he said. As part of its application process, Erie Boulevard will hold public hearings at 2 and 7 p.m. March 7 at Great Bend fire hall on Route 26. Comments collected at the hearings will be included in the company's application to FERC. |