by Peggy Kurtz and Gale Pisha
Rockland County has made real progress in fighting the desalination plant proposed by Suez/United Water for irreplaceable habitat in Haverstraw Bay. The Public Service Commission (PSC) postponed a decision on Suez/United Water’s $60.3 million request for a down payment on the massive costs of this proposal until November 30, after the election.
The company had asked for this surcharge to reimburse it for expenses related to its proposed desalination plant, though the plant has never been approved nor has construction begun.
The good news is that the postponement gives the PSC time for a more careful review. However, some question whether the real intent was to postpone a possibly unpopular decision until after the election.
Rockland residents are outraged that as much as 75% or more of the costs of the $60.3 million are being kept secret. The PSC is now considering whether 65% of the documentation in this application should be kept confidential from the public, as requested by the company, which claimed the disclosure of this information would cause competitive harm. Environmental advocates point out that Suez/United Water’s request is full of entirely unsubstantiated assertions and fails to show that disclosure of this information would cause harm.
What the confidentiality does do, however, is to protect the company from the scrutiny of the public. And even if the confidential status of the documentation is removed, that still does not address the fact that most of the invoices are absent of any useful detail which the PSC, the oversight agency tasked with protecting the public, would need in order to make a meaningful decision on whether to let the ratepayers be charged $60.3 million. Most of the bills state name of the company, date, amount, but no specific services, far less detail than one would expect from a plumber or a restaurant.
Invoices were so heavily redacted that it is impossible to determine what work was done; yet the public is still being asked to shoulder these expenses. In order for Rockland ratepayers to have any level of confidence in a PSC decision, it is essential that details on these charges, as well as fully documented budgets with analyses of alternatives, be laid out.
From the very beginning, Suez/United Water has pursued its own corporate agenda rather than the obligation to serve its customers with least cost and least harm to the environment. No budget has been presented by the company for this proposed project in seven years, nor have any cost/benefit analyses been done on a project for which the price tag has risen from $69 million to $153 million for the first stage alone.
In addition, water would be drawn 3.5 miles downstream from Indian Point’s leaking nuclear reactors, exposing the public to trace radioactive elements in the water they would use to drink, bathe in, and water their gardens. The reverse osmosis process used by desalination plants is extremely energy intensive, which will send our carbon footprint in the wrong direction, and the plant would damage the extremely sensitive ecology of Haverstraw Bay.
Water Wednesdays
Lower Hudson Group is calling for its members and the general public to e-mail the PSC at secretary@dps.ny.gov (refer to case 13-W-0246).
Please contact Governor Cuomo at gov.cuomo@chamber.state.ny.us or 518-474-8390 on Wednesdays through October and November, up until the decision is made. Let him know that election or not, Rockland is watching this decision closely.
NO expenses should be charged to the public without real budgets that conform to acceptable accounting practices! Please ask the PSC to reject Suez/United Water’s request for confidentiality and to require 1) a detailed budget for all stages of the proposal, 2) meaningful explanation of services and 3) documentation to back up the charges residents are being asked to reimburse. We hope that the PSC is changing and that hearing from the public will turn the corner on practices that brought us to this unfortunate point.
If any portion of this desalination surcharge is approved in the absence of publicly reviewed documentation, the headline in Rockland newspapers could well read:
“PSC Imposes $60.3 Million Surcharge for Unneeded Plant Based on Secret Record with No Details of Work.”
Peggy Kurtz and Gale Pisha are co-chairs of the Desalination Committee of the Lower Hudson Group.