Woodstock, NYC seek say in power plan review
Officials in Woodstock and New York City have filed requests seeking intervener status in federal permit proceedings for a proposed 2,800-megawatt electric generating plant at the Ashokan Reservoir.
The documents were submitted last week, with both set of documents contending the project would have significant impacts on the municipalities.
“The city owns the Ashokan Reservoir, which comprises a large part of the proposed pump storage facility and is an important component of the city’s water supply system,” city officials wrote.
“The city uses the Ashokan Reservoir to supply approximately 40 percent of the daily water supply needs of its approximately nine million customers,” they wrote. “The outcome of this proceeding could have a direct and significant impact on the city water supply system and its ability to serve its customers. Accordingly, the city has a substantial interest in this matter.”
Premium Energy Holdings of Walnut, Calif., is seeking to construct a plant up to 300 feet underground at the east edge of the reservoir’s west basin near state Route 28. The facility would be powered by water from a new reservoir, built in one of three proposed locations, that would draw its water from either the Ashokan or the Upper Esopus Creek.
Under the proposal, the plant would generate 2,800 megawatts of electricity, with 800 megawatts of the electricity sent into the grid via a Central Hudson substation on Hurley Avenue in the town of Ulster.
City officials were not told in advance about the application, which comes at the same time they are in the middle of public hearing on a efforts to secure a permanent permit to release turbid water into the Lower Esopus Creek. When the federal application was announced last month, spokesman Adam Bosch said city Department of Environmental Protection representatives were surprised.
“We were totally in the dark,” he said at the time. “We had no inkling of this.”
Woodstock officials note that the town is named as an “affected” party in the permit application.
“The town of Woodstock seeks ... to ensure the public interests of our residents are adequately represented including the ability to protect our natural cultural and archaeological resources,” Supervisor Bill McKenna wrote. “As stewards of the Ashokan Watershed ... we rightfully have a stake in the proceedings.”
Woodstock would be less than two miles from the proposed generator site and is less than a half-mile from a proposed tunnel route if the company were to construct the new reservoir using a site along state Route 214 in Shandaken.