NYPA To Mark 70th Anniversary Amid Challenge and Change
Contact Stephen Shoenholz (914) 390-8165 stephen.shoenholz@nypa.gov
FOR RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2001
ALBANY—The New York Power Authority (NYPA) marks its 70th anniversary Friday (April 27) at a time of significant change in the electric power industry and major new challenges for the Authority itself.
"As the Power Authority reaches this important milestone, its value to New York State has never been greater," Gov. George E. Pataki said. "NYPA gives New York a key advantage as the power business moves into a new age of deregulation and competition. It is a vital part of our efforts to assure reliable, affordable electricity for all New Yorkers, to create and retain private-sector jobs and to protect the environment."
On April 27, 1931, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor of New York, signed legislation creating the Power Authority for the purpose of harnessing the St. Lawrence River’s International Rapids for hydroelectric power production.
NYPA, which uses no tax dollars, since has grown into the nation’s largest state-owned electric utility. It owns and operates 10 power plants, as well as more than 1,400 circuit miles of high-voltage transmission lines—about one-third of all such lines in the state. Its low-cost power helps to protect about 380,000 jobs under Governor Pataki’s Power for Jobs program and other initiatives. And it’s a national leader in promoting energy efficiency, electric transportation and clean new power sources such as fuel cells and solar energy systems.
"The Power Authority traditionally has been called on to meet New York’s most pressing energy needs, at times under emergency conditions," said Joseph J. Seymour, who took office in March as NYPA’s 12th chairman and also serves as chief executive officer. "I see that role continuing and intensifying, especially with respect to protecting jobs for New Yorkers."
The prime current example of the Power Authority’s ability to respond to critical challenges is its installation of 10 small, clean gas-turbine generators in New York City and another on Long Island to help avert blackouts and price spikes this summer. In another major effort, at a substation near Utica, NYPA recently completed the first phase of the world’s most advanced device for boosting power flows on existing transmission lines, reducing the need for new lines.
"These are the kinds of projects that others can’t or won’t take on," said Eugene W. Zeltmann, NYPA’s president and chief operating officer. "The Power Authority is particularly well suited to help facilitate New York’s transition to a competitive electricity market."
None of this could have been envisioned during the years of controversy that preceded the Power Authority’s creation. As far back as 1907, Gov. Charles Evans Hughes had called for public development of the state’s waterpower resources. Theodore Roosevelt, as a former governor of New York and president, urged that course. Gov. Alfred E. Smith backed legislation to create a power authority. But, in the face of strong advocates of private ownership, all efforts were unsuccessful until the Power Authority Act became law with bipartisan support in 1931.
More than 20 years would pass before the Authority could begin to build the hydroelectric facility on the St. Lawrence, now known as the St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt project. The project was delayed mainly because of issues concerning the St. Lawrence Seaway, which was to be constructed along with it. The New York Power Authority became the model for the Tennessee Valley Authority and other public-power organizations, but was itself only a "paper agency."
Finally, in 1952 and 1953, the Power Authority received international and federal approvals for the U.S. share of the St. Lawrence project. And, with construction at hand, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey in March 1954 named Robert Moses, New York’s "Master Builder," as the Authority’s chairman.
Moses pledged that the project, spanning the U.S.-Canadian border at Massena, would be completed within five years and would produce its first electricity within four. Both goals were met, thanks to an extraordinary cooperative effort with Ontario Hydro, which had been designated to build the Canadian half of the facility.
Even before its 800,000-kilowatt St. Lawrence project began operation, the Power Authority had started construction of a still larger hydroelectric facility—the 2,400,000-kw Niagara project at Lewiston, near Niagara Falls. The public-private development arguments had raged again, but were effectively ended by a rockslide in June 1956 that destroyed most of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.’s Schoellkopf hydroelectric plant on the Niagara River. With Western New York industries facing a power emergency, Congress in 1957 designated the Power Authority to build the new project.
Moses again presided over an all-out construction effort. As he’d promised, electricity production began in February 1961—less than three years after the start of work on what was then the Western World’s largest hydro project and is still New York’s largest power source.
During the 1970s, the Power Authority went on to build a pumped storage hydroelectric project in Schoharie County, a nuclear plant in Oswego County and a 155-mile transmission line from the Quebec border to Central New York. With the Consolidated Edison Co. in financial crisis, NYPA responded to a legislative mandate to buy a nuclear plant in Westchester County and an oil-fueled plant in New York City from the utility and to complete their construction.
Its role as a major statewide power supplier secured, NYPA during the ’80s and ’90s built the 207-mile Marcy-South transmission line, extending the Quebec link to downstate New York; helped to meet Long Island’s growing energy needs by installing a transmission cable under Long Island Sound and building an efficient natural gas-fueled power plant in Holtsville; and completed five small hydroelectric facilities. It also launched an ambitious series of energy-efficiency programs at public facilities, efforts that now save New York taxpayers nearly $70 million a year through reduced energy costs.
Anticipating the changing needs of the competitive era, the Power Authority last year sold its two nuclear plants to Entergy Corp. for a record $967 million. The sale has enabled NYPA to focus its resources on its remaining generation and transmission facilities, including the two large hydroelectric projects where its operating history began. This fall, it will apply for a new federal license for the St. Lawrence-FDR project, where the current license expires in 2003. It is preparing for the relicensing of Niagara, where the license runs through 2007. And it is investing more than half a billion dollars in upgrades that will permit the two facilities to operate at peak efficiency far into the future.
