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More than 50 people packed a hearing room while a dozen onlookers were forced to listen from the hallway as a state commission heard opinions Monday in Syracuse about how to make the best use of cheap, state-owned hydropower.
Judging from the competing demands, the commission will have a hard time pleasing everyone later this year when it makes recommendations to the governor and Legislature.
The 11-member Temporary Commission on the Future of New York State Power Programs for Economic Development has been charged with improving the state's programs to supply low-cost power to promote business development.
Several economic development programs run by the New York Power Authority, including Power for Jobs, are scheduled to expire next year.
Six commission members came to Monday's session, the fourth of five hearings the group will conduct before it begins deliberations. Here's some of what they heard:
Randy Wolken, president of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York, urged that 550 megawatts of hydropower from the state's Niagara Power Project used to reduce residential bills at three Upstate utilities be reallocated to industry.
Manufacturers desperately need a stable supply of competitively price power, Wolken said.
"While MACNY is sensitive to the impact this would have on residentials, we believe the impact of allocations to industrial consumers would have a far greater positive impact than its current use provides," he said.
Robert Bergin, speaking for two of the three Upstate utilities that get residential power allocations from the Niagara project, said shifting that power to industrial users would have a "significant" negative impact on residential customers.
Customers of New York State Electric & Gas would face rate increases of 7.2 percent to 8.7 percent without Niagara power, Bergin said. Rochester Gas & Electric customers would see rate increases of 10.8 percent to 14.2 percent.
"These dramatic increases, at a time when the Upstate economy continues to struggle, would cause a true hardship," Bergin said.
Representatives from National Grid, the third utility involved, did not speak at the hearing.
Niagara hydropower saves Grid's residential customers about 0.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, or roughly 4 percent for a typical customer, said Alberto Bianchetti, speaking for National Grid.
About 9 percent of National Grid's residential power comes from the Niagara project; it provides 15 percent for NYSEG and 22 percent for RG&E, according to 2002 data from the power authority.
Several manufacturers echoed Wolken's call for the state to provide cheap electricity at predictable rates.
But Steve McCormick, manager of the Anheuser-Busch plant in Baldwinsville, said he has given up on state programs and plans to build a wood-fired generating plant in 2010 to supply electricity to the brewery.
More than a dozen speakers from Massena, Potsdam and other North Country communities implored the commission not to reduce the power allocated to their region from the state's St. Lawrence hydro facility, in Massena.
Homes and farms were razed or flooded to make way for the hydro project, with the understanding that the communities would always benefit from low-cost hydropower, said Robert McNeil, St. Lawrence County treasurer.
"We sacrificed our river for this power," McNeil said.
Two speakers from Western New York said 70 megawatts of Niagara power that was diverted from their region for statewide economic development programs should be reallocated exclusively to Western New York.
The commission is due to make recommendations by Dec. 1.
It won't be easy, said state Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, a member of the panel.
"You can see the regional tensions that make this whole issue difficult to address," he said.
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