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Sen. Bonacic battles plan to construct power lines
May 12, 2006
 By Jessica Gardner
Times Herald-Record

Narrowsburg - This means war.

New York state Sen. John Bonacic is rallying public support for a full-out battle against New York Regional Interconnect, a Canadian-based company that has pitched a plan to build a 200-mile direct-current transmission line from Utica to Orange County.

And straight through the federally protected Upper Delaware in Sullivan County.

"(NYRI) isn't taking on a couple of small towns; they are taking on thousands," said Bonacic, R-C Mount Hope. "They are taking me and the New York Senate on."

Bonacic isn't battling with rhetoric; instead, the Republican senator has committed $50,000 of Legislative Initiative funding to the Upper Delaware Council for an offensive strategy that could include experts, consultants and attorneys.

They'll have their work cut out for them, since NYRI has already hired one of Albany's leading lobbying law firms and a Washington law firm that boasts several former top officials from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on its payroll.

Bonacic's announcement, made in front of at least a dozen officials from Orange, Sullivan and Pike, Pa., counties yesterday in Narrowsburg just feet from the banks of the Delaware River, is just the beginning, he said, of a fight that could continue for years.

Even so, he said, now is the time for all area communities to circle the wagons with petitions, letter drives and a war chest.

"There is a lot of work to be done," Bonacic said. "These lines do not belong in our backyard."

Developers say they hope to start building in 2008 and plan to send enough electricity to power more than a million downstate homes by 2011.

During the past few weeks, the company has held public information sessions in New Windsor and Mount Hope. The next meeting - the first in Sullivan County - is 7-9 p.m. Thursday at the Delaware Community Center in Callicoon.