New York Admits Electricity Generating Plants Headed to Poor Areas

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http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/15/nyregion/15POWE.html

March 15, 2001

New York Admits Plants Headed to Poor Areas

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

ALBANY, March 14 - The Pataki administration acknowledges in its own study

that the electric generators it wants to install around New York City would

go into poor, heavily minority communities, a finding that supports some of

the arguments of the project's opponents.

The study, conducted in January by the State Power Authority, has not been

publicly released, despite requests for information by several

organizations, including the opponents.

The debate over the planned locations of the generators has reached such a

heated pitch that the State Assembly has taken the unusual step of issuing

subpoenas to high- ranking officials in the administration of Gov. E.

Pataki to testify about the generators. They had been asked to appear at a

hearing to be held Thursday in Manhattan, but refused. The hearing has been

postponed a week to March 22.

Environmental and community groups, local businesses and a state legislator

have sued the state over the generators, saying that the state illegally

bypassed environmental laws, failed to consider other locations and put an

undue burden on certain neighborhoods. Oral arguments were held Tuesday in

State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, and Justice Lawrence S. Knipel said he

would rule by the end of the month.

The Power Authority plans to install 10 natural-gas-fired turbines at six

sites in the city and one on Long Island. The administration hopes that by

increasing the region's power supply by 3 to 4 percent, it can avoid the

kind of steep price rises that hit consumers last summer and lessen the risk

of shortages. Private builders have proposed much larger plants, but they

are at least three years from completion.

The authority's analysis says that the sites in the Bronx, Brooklyn and

Queens are in areas with heavy concentrations of industrial polluters. The

sites have an average of 100 other plants with air pollution permits within

one mile of them.

The state is not required to ensure that sources of pollution do not put a

disproportionate burden on minority and poor areas. But it is usually

required to consider whether a proposed plant would go into a neighborhood

that is already disproportionately affected by pollution. It also has to

show that it considered other sites. The state bypassed both requirements by

not conducting environmental impact reviews.

The state took advantage of a provision in the law that subjects power

plants of less than 80 megawatts to minimal environmental review. The

two-turbine sites would be able to produce 88 megawatts, but the state has

promised to limit their output to 79.9 megawatts. Critics of the plan say

this amounts to an illegal evasion.

Assemblyman ph R. Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat whose district includes

one of the sites, said, " It's clear they went where the communities were the

poorest and the whole thing could be done quickest and with the least

resistance. "

But a Power Authority spokesman, A. Petralia, said the sites were

chosen because they had available gas and electric hook-ups, and could be

put to use by summer. He said the generators would have little impact on air

quality in those areas, and that the authority would offset any pollution by

reducing emissions at other plants.

He also argued that poor communities would benefit most from the effort.

" Avoiding high energy costs has a greater impact on low-income communities, "

he said.

The Assembly delivered subpoenas Tuesday to Eugene W. Zeltmann, the

president of the Power Authority; Maureen Helmer, the chairwoman of the

Public Service Commission, which asked the authority to install the

generators; and Gavin J. Donohue, acting commissioner of the Department of

Environmental Conservation, which agreed to the generators.

The officials had declined to testify at the Assembly's hearing. Legislators

complained that the administration had not tried to explain its plans to the

residents of the affected neighborhoods, or given the residents a chance to

comment.

" Our people are always ready and willing to accommodate the Assembly, " said

McKeon, spokesman for the governor. " It's just a matter of working

out scheduling. "

Assemblyman Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, is a plaintiff in a suit

challenging one of the turbine projects, and Mr. Lentol and Assemblyman Vito

J. , Democrat of Brooklyn, say they plan to join in a suit against

another.

The turbines are among the cleanest of power plant technologies, but they

would emit pollutants that would most heavily affect the surrounding areas.

The authority estimates that a single turbine could produce as much as 61

tons a year of toxic compounds, soot and chemicals that contribute to smog.

The Power Authority conducted what is known as an environmental justice

analysis, an effort to determine whether the project would

disproportionately affect the poor and minorities.

People and organizations that have requested copies of the analysis say the

authority has refused to release it. Mr. Petralia said the requests would be

granted in due time. A reporter received a copy from an official at another

state agency.

Using 1990 census data, the authority found that at each of the six New York

City sites, the surrounding community had a higher poverty rate than the

entire borough or the city, and a higher proportion of minority residents.

(Detailed data from the 2000 census are not yet available.)

The authority plans to put 4 of the 11 turbines at two sites in the Bronx.

Those neighborhoods are heavily poor and populated by members of racial

minorities, even for the Bronx, which is the most heavily black and Hispanic

county in the state and one of the poorest.

In 1990, 29 percent of the Bronx population lived below the poverty line, 37

percent was black and 42 percent was Hispanic.

Around one proposed turbine site, at the Harlem River Yards, 51 percent of

the people living within half a mile of the site lived in poverty, 37

percent were black and 65 percent were Hispanic. At the other Bronx

location, in the Port section, 44 percent of the people within half a

mile were poor, 48 percent were black and 52 percent were Hispanic, the

study said.

The authority also proposes to put one turbine in burg, Brooklyn;

two in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; two near Queens Plaza; one in Rosebank, Staten

Island; and one at Pilgrim State Hospital in Islip on Long Island.

" There's clearly an environmental justice issue here, and the state is

attempting to pretend that there's not, " said K. Babbie, an

environmental lobbyist for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a

plaintiff in the suit against all 11 turbines.

The state made a finding that the power plants did not require an

environmental impact review under state law, a conclusion that the lawsuit

plaintiffs and Democrats in the Legislature say was illegal.

" In the rush to get these plants in, they're simply saying the law doesn't

apply, and they're wrong, " said Assemblyman Tonko, chairman of the

Energy Committee.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company