May 29, 2018
Peggy Kurtz, Laura Burkhardt and Gale Pisha
Rockland branch of Lower Hudson Group
If environmentalists favor renewable energy, then what’s wrong with a proposal to bring Canadian hydropower to New York City? A close look reveals serious problems with this massive project.
The Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), estimated at $2.2 billion, proposes an electric transmission corridor to bring 1,000 megawatts of high voltage electricity generated from Canadian megadams to Queens, NY. Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter opposes this project because, as currently planned, it would be a private roadway for Hydro-Quebec, a private corporation heavily subsidized by the Canadian government. Its electricity would undercut New York State renewable energy development and transmission, and be destructive to the environment. The construction of such major infrastructure would shape our energy future for decades to come, so it’s important that we get it right.
CHPE would run through Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to reach Queens, coming ashore for 126 miles around Albany and again for 7 miles in northeast Rockland County. The builder, Transmission Developers Inc. (TDI), a Blackstone Group L.P. company, first proposed this scheme in 2010.* Proponents portray this project as importing “renewable energy” to replace energy from fracked gas and oil. However, a careful review of the proposal reveals flawed assumptions and various environmental and economic risks.
CHPE is designed as an extension cord that plugs New York City directly into dammed rivers in Canada, with no access along the route for NYS-generated energy. Communities in both Canada and NYS would bear negative economic and environmental impacts if the project were completed. These include:
- Carbon and mercury footprint from destruction of forests and dam construction: The hydropower would not originate from free-flowing streams but from artificial impoundments constructed after large areas of forest are clear-cut and flooded. As of late 2016, 22 major hydroelectric dams were proposed or under construction close to indigenous communities in Canada. If the land is flooded, methane would be released from rotting, submerged vegetation. The loss of forests and the methane emission would exacerbate climate change, which affects us all. Furthermore, the flooded land would release significant methylmercury, poisoning the food chain.**
- Fewer local jobs: Reliance on Canadian power would undercut financial incentives for developing local, distributed renewable energy. Solar and wind installations show great promise to be major local job creators for decades, but if there’s no incentive to develop these installations there will be no creation of the related jobs. CHPE and Hydro-Quebec jobs will be Canadian jobs.
- No guarantee of renewable energy: While CHPE’s builders state that the energy source for this transmission line would be hydropower, there is no legal guarantee that it won’t substitute fossil fuel or nuclear power if they deem it necessary.
- Reduced financial benefit: Locally generated power results in local property tax revenue, and income to landowners who rent their property for renewable installations.
- Risks of a high-voltage transmission line: It would at times pass under or along the right of way of the CSX railroad, which carries fossil fuels and chemicals. It would also sometimes go along the rights of way of Routes 9 and 9W, and under at least one natural gas pipeline. If built, the decommissioning plan is to abandon the cables at the end of their life cycle, leaving them under the Hudson River and Lake Champlain forever.
- Other local impacts: Local communities would bear the impacts of this line, which would pass through parks and other public spaces. The project would be likely to destroy both onshore and river habitat, and could increase PCB contamination stirred up during river construction.
Due to protected sturgeon habitat designated under the Obama administration, the developer was required to take an overland route around Haverstraw Bay. The original seven-mile overland route was opposed by the affected communities in Rockland County. However, in January 2018, five Rockland municipalities signed memoranda of understanding that promise millions of dollars in return for their support of a modified route via state highway 9W. The Town of Stony Point would receive $5.3 million, the Town of Haverstraw, $6.8 million, the Village of West Haverstraw, $2.5 million, the Village of Haverstraw, $3.5 million and the Town of Clarkstown, $3.9 million. These sums are in addition to $9 million that TDI would provide for road improvements along the 9W corridor.
Proponents of CHPE, including Governor Cuomo, claim the CHPE project is needed to provide replacement power for the Indian Point nuclear power plant when it closes, but this is not so. Two separate reliability studies — one by the New York Independent System Operator, which manages the grid, and the other from Public Service Commission’s Indian Point Retirement Contingency proceeding (Case 12-E-0503) — clearly demonstrate that reliable replacement power for Indian Point is already in place.
In his January State of the State speech, Governor Cuomo also announced aggressive plans for solar and offshore wind development in NYS, in addition to onshore wind farms. Combined with energy efficiency and transmission upgrades, solar and wind power are far more desirable and effective options to meet the state’s energy needs than importing Canadian hydropower, which would undercut the development of local renewable energy.
Sierra Club strongly supports building renewable energy and energy efficiency in ways that grow our local economies, minimize negative environmental impacts and help shape a truly sustainable energy future.
* See Sierra Atlantic 2015, “Stop CHPE; No need to import Canadian electricity from 1,200 miles away” (/content/stop-chpe-no-need-import-canadian-electricity-1200-miles-away).
** See “Ninety-percent of proposed Canadian hydroelectric projects may expose local indigenous communities to methylmercury” (https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2016/11/human-health-risks-from-hydroelectric-projects)
Thanks to Jürgen Wekerle and Don Hughes for their invaluable contributions to this article.