Dam: Massena Hydro Project Dead
MASSENA - A proposed hydroelectric dam in the Grasse River that could have powered 800 homes and was a key component to downtown Massena revitalization is dead in the water, washing $5 million spent on seven years of regulatory fees and project studies down the drain.
The Massena Electric Utility Board voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to end its effort to site a new dam just upriver from the dam that had stood in the river for nearly two centuries.
That dam deteriorated more than 20 years ago, and finally failed in the 1990s.
"Continuing any further is just throwing good money after bad money," MED Board Chairman James M. Shaw said. " We just don't see any way that we're going to get resolution."
Officials said a lack of cooperation from state and federal regulatory agencies became too costly and time prohibitive. Wednesday's decision put an end to a process beginning 12 years ago when the village and town boards in Massena and the Louisville Town Board passed a joint resolution supporting the construction of the dam. Alcoa later joined the effort.
"It's been a tough long road, a sad road, as far as I'm concerned," board member and former Town Supervisor Jack A. Sauve said. "It's a long sad day to come down here Sept. 1 of 2010 some 12 years after that, and have to say you have to quit something that you honestly in your heart believe that should be there. It would have done a lot to the downtown area."
Initially, it looked like the stars were aligned for the project, Mr. Shaw said.
"We believed we had a lot of things going for us," Mr. Shaw said. "Unfortunately, we never fully estimated the power of the regulatory agencies."
Throughout the seven years of regulatory and environmental studies, the responsiveness to the project from those agencies was questionable, Mr. Shaw said.
"They continued to keep hitting us with additional studies, or what was wrong with our studies, and never really giving us any benefit that we were looking at renewable energy. The positives we saw in the project they never seemed to see," he said. "All they saw was disruption of the river and they didn't want the dam to be built."
Officials from the state Department of Environmental Conservation were not available for comment on Wednesday.
In 2006, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave MED three years to complete the necessary studies and licensing involved to begin building the dam. When the studies and permits were not completed by last year due to some of the problems in working with the agencies, FERC gave MED another three years to complete them, Mr. Shaw said.
The project took a turn for the worse in December, when MED received notice that the DEC, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers were withdrawing collaboration in completing the proper licensing for the dam. Each agency was instead going to wait until after MED had submitted the licensing application to say what was wrong with it, MED Superintendent Andrew W. McMahon said.
"They could have said 'That's wrong' and hand it back to us without ever telling us what was wrong rather than sit down and work collaboratively with us," Mr. McMahon said.
It was then the project hit a wall. Finding out about problems needing remedy from the agencies after submitting the application would simply cost too much, officials said.
"It's very obvious that they're not interested in this thing happening," Mr. Shaw said.
The agencies had problems with a variety of environmental issues associated with the project, according to Mr. Shaw.
"I don't think we can single one out," he said.
An original estimate of the project put the cost at $10-11 million, with $450,000 in regulatory fees. Approximately $5 million, or half the amount of the originally budgeted project, has been spent in just regulatory fees.
The announcement also alters plans for downtown waterfront redevelopment. MED's proposed dam would have restored water levels to allow boating and other recreational activities on the river. Those opportunities have not been available on the river since a manmade weir near the Main Street bridge first built in the early 1800s was breached in the 1990s, eliminating the former pond area that had existed.
Village Mayor Randy G. DeLosh said waterfront revitalization can go on without the restoration of the pond area. The village still has a $1.5 million grant in Seaway Trail Funding to create walking trails along the river, which Mr. DeLosh said he hopes could still attract businesses to the waterfront.
Changing the village's waterfront plans will likely be up for discussion at Tuesday's Board of Trustees meeting, Mr. DeLosh said.
"It does look like the project itself can still move forward," he said.
Of the approximately $5 million spent, $3 million came from Alcoa, spokeswoman Laurie A. Marr said, and MED funded over $2 million.
Alcoa had a vested interest in the dam's potential to control ice moving down the river. Ice moving down the river stirs up toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. The chemicals are at the river bottom near the plant, and Alcoa is responsible for cleaning them up.
Alcoa will reimburse MED for the $1.2 million in ice control studies it spent over the last two years, Ms. Marr said.
"We support MED's decision to not pursue the project any further," Ms. Marr said. "We do feel MED made the decision with the best interests of the rate payers in mind."
The MED board, in a strongly worded four page letter, shared their frustration over the process with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency charged to serve as the arbiter in the licensing process.
They noted they regretted the support the FERC staff had provided during the project had largely been wasted.
"More importantly, we are disappointed for our community, who has steadfastly supported this project. What would have been a project that embraced the essence of sustainability, creating multiple environmental, social and economic benefits on various levels, has been buried in a bureaucracy that fails to follow its own rules," the letter signed by Mr. Shaw, Mr Sauve and fellow Massena Electric Utility Board members Richard J. Blais, Rene P. Hart and Richard E. Maginn said.
Board members charged it was clear the agencies - specifically naming the DEC, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Corps of Engineers - had prejudged the project and intended to wear MED down in the lengthy regulatory process.
"The MED board is astonished at the attitudes and actions of government agencies whose responsibility it was to work with us on this project," the letter noted.
"This is a project that would restore the Grasse River to the habitat that was there for nearly 200 years, develop a renewable source of energy in a carbon-constrained world and create economic and development opportunities for our community," the letter said.
"Their activiites and lack of cooperation resulted in project requirements bereft of definition, amidst a process they apparently never intended to follow and left MED no alternatives but to determine that it is no longer advisable to pursue this project," MED board members said in their letter to FERC.
Mr. Shaw, after listening to local elected officials voice their frustration with the process that killed the project, indicated he shared that sentiment. "Sorry we couldn't deliver," he said.
