CHENANGO COUNTY – Over a year after starting the process, a date for resuming the state’s review of the $1.6 billion high voltage power line threatening the hills of Chenango County still hasn’t been set, but it could begin “in a matter of weeks,” a power line company spokesman said.
In the meantime, local opposition to the line is continuing to raise funds and develop legal strategies, representatives said Thursday.
New York Regional Interconnect Inc., a Canadian-backed firm, first announced its plans to build a 190-mile-long direct current power line through seven upstate counties, including 44 miles of Chenango, in March 2006.
However, that July, the company’s certification application, known as the Article VII – a series of studies, photos, plans and documents that take up several large binders – was deemed incomplete in a number of areas – including providing proof that the project would benefit the state’s electricity consumers – by the New York’s top energy authority, the Public Service Commission.
“The application states that the proposed project meets the recommendations for reliability benefits,” a July 2006 letter from the PSC states. “But does not describe what the reliability benefits are.”
Following the PSC ruling, <a href="http://www.evesun.com/topics/news/NYRI/">NYRI</a> officials said a completed filing would come in the spring of 2007. Later, the date changed to July, and was again pushed back to the end of this past summer. Now, it’s said the Article VII re-submission won’t come until at least this fall.
“It’s being finalized,” said NYRI spokesman David Kalson. “It will be in the near future. A matter of weeks.”
PSC public affairs spokeswoman Anne Dalton said there is no time limit on how long NYRI’s application can remain active, nor is there a deadline for re-filing.
“The ball is in their court,” she said. “Right now it’s status quo, our office has an incomplete filing ... there is no ticking clock (for them to complete it).”
