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Sullivan County locals protest power lines
May 19, 2006
 By Sarah Koenig
Times Herald-Record

Callicoon - Bill May wasn't fazed by the hundreds of local residents who came out to the Delaware Community Center Thursday night to protest his power line proposal.

"I can absolutely tell you that with every project that I've worked on, this is the kind of response that we see," said May, project manager for the New York Regional Interconnection. May said he's shepherded a number of power line projects through the court of public opinion. "Initially, nobody wants change."

But that doesn't change the reality of the situation, he said.

"The energy that serves this facility, and every home and business in this community, comes from somewhere," he said. "It comes from somebody's backyard."

From the reaction of the residents and public officials to May's presentation on the NYRI power lines - which would stretch 200 miles from Oneida County to Orange County - he and his team will have to do a lot more convincing.

The overflow crowd of about 450, which included state Sen. John Bonacic, R-C Mount Hope, Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, D-Forestburgh, and Sullivan County legislators, grilled the NYRI team during a two-hour question-and-answer period after the presentation.

Many questioned the necessity of the project in this time of renewable energy sources, as well as the placement of the lines. NYRI had originally considered constructing the lines along the railroad tracks, which would put them closer to the Delaware River. They have since stated that the favored route would be along the Millenium Pipeline corridor from Deposit to Deerpark.

"Why not use the same route as the Marcy-South power line?" one man asked. "If we can have five phone companies on one cell tower, why not two power companies on one right of way?"

An NYRI engineer said that technical problems prohibited them from seriously considering following the Marcy-South power lines, but that the logic behind "piggybacking" was the reason they were looking at established utility lines to build along.

While nearly all at Thursdays meeting argued against the power lines, one Port Jervis resident risked the crowd's anger by supporting it.

"I think what people fail to realize is that there's a price we have to pay for living in an industrialized society," said John Wortmann, starting an argument that spilled outside and into the street. "That price is power lines and power plants."