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And now, Son of Marcy-South
A proposed new power line raises some old fears.
April 26, 2006
 By Brendan Scott
Times Herald-Record

We have been here before. It was a couple of decades ago, when memories of massive power blackouts were still fresh and concerns about meeting the future energy needs of New York City and its burgeoning suburbs were enough to outweigh arguments about devalued property and spoiled vistas. They called it Marcy-South. The lengthy, high-voltage power line with its imposing towers gained approval after lengthy, often heated, debate. It is now part of the local landscape, grudgingly accepted, but hardly blended into the woodwork, much less the woods.

Apparently, the mother of all power lines wasn't enough. Developers want to build another one, starting in the same place, Marcy (near Utica), and wending its way through several counties, including Sullivan and Orange, before ending at a Central Hudson substation outside New Windsor.

The project's developers are calling it the New York Regional Interconnect, which could be a high-speed rail line or a computer linkup for area schools for all that name conveys. We'll call it Son of Marcy-South, so everyone around here knows immediately what we're talking about.

What we're talking about is another lengthy, high-voltage power line that could pose threats to property values, scenic vistas and even local economies. We're also talking about a project funded by well-heeled Canadian developers who have hired law firms and two well-connected lobbying firms to carry water for them in Albany and Washington, D.C.

The federal government enters the picture because one of the two proposed routes for Son of Marcy-South follows the tracks of the Norfolk Southern Railroad along the Delaware River through Sullivan and into Orange County. The Upper Delaware River has been designated a scenic recreational area by the federal government, and its management plan forbids such things as huge transmission towers and power lines. Not especially scenic or conducive to recreation.

In fact, that restriction has done in Son of Marcy-South once already. In 2003, the same developer - Richard A. Muddiman - ran into fierce opposition from residents along the river who could not fathom people paddling down the scenic Delaware in the shadow of giant electric towers. Muddiman then said he would bury the power lines underground in the most environmentally sensitive stretches, at a cost of some $200 million. That reasonable concession quickly disappeared, as did the project (called Pegasus, an equally uninformative name).

Now, Muddiman has started anew, with a new company name and headquarters, but essentially the same $1 billion project. The high-priced lawyers and lobbyists, among other things, are surely being paid to convince the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to declare Son of Marcy-South an "electric transmission corridor of national interest." That's a little business-friendly wrinkle written into last year's Energy Policy Act by the GOP-controlled Congress. It would give Regional Interconnect the power to take land by eminent domain.

Developers say they absolutely do not want to do this, that they want to give landowners fair market value for needed land. If that's the case, then why even have the line run through environmentally sensitive areas where opposition would be strongest?

Muddiman has added one significant element: an alternate route that takes the power line several miles north of the river route. It would follow the route of the planned Millennium natural gas pipeline through western Sullivan into Cuddebackville in Orange and reconnect with the rail line to finish in Rock Tavern. There may not be any scenic designations along that route, but there are surely a lot of anxious landowners.

When Marcy-South was proposed, this newspaper eventually supported the project because of those massive blackouts and the obvious need for a more secure power grid in the region. It was a difficult decision based on the belief the added electric power was crucial.

Is that the case today? If so, Regional Interconnect has to make that case. Does the transmission line have to follow the proposed paths? Does it all have to be aboveground? Again, the developers need to answer these questions.

On one thing, though, there can be no doubt: There can be no high-rise electric towers along the Upper Delaware River, where local economies depend on visitors coming to have fun on the water and adjacent lands. That can also be said of land along the Neversink River, also in the proposed path of Son of Marcy-South. By any name, that is unacceptable.