Re Fred Pfieffer’s Jan. 25 letter and recent Gazette editorials calling for improved New York economic development policies, we can do much better than importing additional river-wrecking electricity from Canada.
The provincial governments of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) are literally destroying large rivers to sell electricity to New York and New England.
The developers of the long delayed Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), a 333-mile one-way south, one-billion-watt electricity corridor from Quebec to New York City, are quietly obtaining federal and state permits while changing parts of the route hoping the public doesn’t notice.
CHPE cables would be buried and eventually abandoned under Lake Champlain and the Hudson, Harlem and East rivers, and along roads and railroad rights-of-way in parts of Clinton, Warren, Saratoga, Schenectady, Albany and Rockland counties.
Despite a minimum construction cost of $2 billion, CHPE would provide only a few hundred temporary construction jobs and a couple of dozen jobs if completed, while the state’s wealth would go to Canada to pay for imported power. CHPE isn’t needed to replace the Indian Point nuclear station electricity when it’s closed in a few years. With CHPE, the installation of in-state employment-intensive renewable electricity, energy efficiency, and conservation, would likely be slowed because there might appear to be less need for it.
CHPE electricity is being falsely promoted as clean and renewable.
This letter shouldn’t be interpreted as Canada bashing. It’s about protecting rivers from needless destruction.
Tom Ellis
Albany
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Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion
