Power firm takes issue with Hein's criticisms
TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. » GlidePath Power Solutions, the company that wants to build a 20-megawatt electric-generating plant along Frank Sottile Boulevard in the town of Ulster, has fired back at Ulster County Executive Michael Hein over his objections to the proposal.
In a four-page letter to Hein, dated Monday, Minnesota-based GlidePath chided the executive for expressing concerns about the plan to store 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel at the Ulster site, noting the county itself stores large quantities at four locations.
“Please be reminded that similar types and quantities of fuel are safely stored by the county government and numerous other agencies and businesses nationwide,” GlidePath Chief Development Officer Peter Rood wrote. “Thankfully, today’s rules and regulations place strict standards and multiple levels of redundant safety mechanisms to secure storage tanks and prevent system failures that could result in leaks or other hazards.”
Rood said information provided by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation states there are six diesel tanks with a total capacity of 38,470 gallons at the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center, six tanks with a total capacity of 21,240 gallons at the Ulster County Area Transit center, five tanks with a total capacity of 21,785 gallons at Ulster County Community College, and eight tanks with a total capacity of 19,125 gallons at the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency.
“We are working to find ways to reduce the amount of backup fuel stored on site with a commitment to no more than 50,000 gallons of capacity while still maintaining required fuel redundancy levels,” Rood wrote.
Hein said adding new fuel-storage capacity is not conducive to moving toward renewable energy.
“The county runs and extraordinarily large and intricate operation, and Ulster County is, far and away, the most environmentally responsible county in the state of New York,” Hein said by phone.
Hein, in a June 4 letter to the heads of the state Department of Public Service and New York Energy Research and Development Authority, said GlidePath’s proposal “is severely flawed in that it would bind future generations to unsustainable fossil fuel infrastructure with the accompanying negative environmental impacts.”
Also in his letter, Hein said it was ironic that the site on which GlidePath wants to build its power station is “a mere 100 yards away” from a new solar panel array that generates more than 20 percent of the electricity used by the county government.
GlidePath, under the name Lincoln Park DG LLC, has proposed using about 3 acres of a 122acre site along Frank Sottile Boulevard, between Miron Lane and state Route 32. The site is made up of three parcels owned by Kingston Landing LLC.
The power plant would be fueled by natural gas and lithium-ion batteries.
GlidePath has said the plant would provide backup electricity during local power outages and be able to put electricity into the grid during periods of peak demand. Critics, however, say the plant would provide power primarily for the New York City area.
“Energy produced by the project would feed consumption in the metro NY area while disproportionately burdening our community and impacting our residents with gas engines, hundred-foot smokestacks and air pollution impacts,” Hein wrote in his June 4 letter.
Rood responded in his letter that “it is simply inaccurate to assert that the [plant] is proposed here in Ulster County only to serve the energy demands of [New York City].”
He wrote that the town of Ulster location was chosen based on statistics from the state that show growing power demand north of Westchester County.
Rood said last month that heavy demand anywhere in New York state could trigger use of the plant, and that if there is high demand locally at the same time as in New York City, local customers would be served first.
“If those [local] ‘peaking needs’ are nonexistent, then it will go to the next nearest peaking need,” he said. “Eventually, after you go through all those peaking needs, you end up in New York City.”
Hein on Tuesday stood by his contention that the plant would serve primarily the downstate metropolitan area.
“They are doing this for one purpose and one purpose only — financial benefit,” he said. “There is no question that if they did not build this, [local electricity] rates would not increase in our community and we would continue to be able to meet our demand.”
On the smokestack issue, Rood said Monday that GlidePath’s plan calls for stacks that would be 80 feet high — not 100 feet, as Hein claimed — and that an effort is being made to reduce that height.
The “correct stack height is zero,” Hein replied on Tuesday.