N.Y. state must protect us from gas-fired power plants

Dear Editor,

Building a new gas-fired power plant in New York is an idea whose time should never come. The overwhelming opposition was clear at recent public hearings on Danskammer Energy’s proposal to do just that.

It’s time for the Public Service Commission and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to protect us from new gas plants and deny this permit.

Danskammer’s proposed plant is wrong for many reasons, and ought to be against our current climate law. The 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act mandated that New York state’s electric grid would rely on 70 percent renewable power by 2030. That’s only nine years from now. Plus, it promises a fully carbon-neutral grid by 2040.

Danskammer’s idea to switch to “green” hydrogen fuel in 2040 would be too little, too late, if it is even possible.

Fossil fuels have never been benign, especially to residents of the areas where plants are built. Newburgh inhabitants would suffer increased childhood cancers and neurological diseases, respiratory and heart ailments as a result of toxins and pollutants emitted by the plant. For us all, burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases that are pushing us over the edge of irrevocable climate change.

Danskammer in particular would emit 40 times the greenhouse gases currently emitted by the existing peaker plant on the site.

We need to give teeth to New York’s current climate law, with strict pollution and climate regulations that gas plants can’t meet, and, with the backing of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, an outright legislative ban on new gas plants.

Fossil fuels must give way to ramping up clean, renewable energy. Let’s commit to “Stop Gas Plants!”

JoyAnn Savino Highland, N.Y.