Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Watts Up, Doc?’
As a resident of the city as well as the owner of upstate property, I was truly shocked at your editorial on the subject of supplying power to New York City and the proposed NYRI project [“Watts Up, Doc?,” August 16, 2006]. I understand the need for power, having experienced blackouts. But NYRI is not a government agency protecting our interests nor is it a charitable company stepping in to help out. NYRI is a foreign-owned, extremely secretive, Enron-esque company that sees a profit to be made from using recently-revised eminent domain laws to take private land and cut a swath through our state.
Power lines are necessary, you say? Maybe, although Mayor Bloomberg says we’re fine for the next 6 years, and recent power problems in the city were caused by local issues such as old wires in Queens, not because of a lack of juice from upstate. If new power lines are needed, why can’t NYRI cut a deal with the existing Marcy South lines, or others, which are abundant? Simply because it’s cheaper to take from others than it is to share the profit with other energy companies, who already scarred the countryside decades ago. Suddenly, profit is disclosed as the driving force here, and we the citizens of New York become a resource for foreign investors.
We’re living in an era where we can’t take water on an airplane and we don’t want foreigners watching our ports. So why is it a good idea to give a Canadian company a stranglehold on a major power supply for the biggest city in the country? Has everybody forgotten what Enron did to California a few years back? I say first we fix the problems within the city’s internal power grid, then we explore ways to locally and regionally produce power close to the city. If power needs to be brought in it should stick to existing routes, of which there are dozens already in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
PETER MCGUIGAN
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Please address letters intended for publication to the Editor of The New York Sun. Letters may be sent by e-mail to editor@nysun.com, by facsimile to 212-608-7348, or post to 105 Chambers Street, New York City 10007. Please include a return address and daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited.
