JAMESTOWN: NYPA Power Helps Create 250 Jobs at Cummins—An allocation of 500 kilowatts of low-cost NYPA hydropower, part of a state incentive package, will help Cummins, Inc., add 250 jobs over the next three months—and as many as 250 more by 2005—at its diesel truck-engine plant in the Village of Lakewood. The incentive package, announced by Gov. George E. Pataki at the plant on Oct. 9, will allow Cummins to consolidate its entire heavy truck-engine manufacturing in Western New York. Another factor in Cummins' decision to expand its local operations is the company's collaboration with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority in a $7 million program to design cleaner and more fuel-efficient diesel engines. Cummins will also be eligible to apply for an additional $5 million in state economic- and community-development funds.

WHITE PLAINS: Power Authority Sells $532 Million in Bonds—The Power Authority has sold $532 million of Series 2002 A Revenue Bonds to help cover the costs of building a 500-megawatt power plant next to its Charles Poletti Power Project in Astoria, Queens. Yields on the tax-exempt issue range from 1.9 percent for bonds due in 2005 to 4.61 percent for a 2022 maturity. The bonds are rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service, AA by Fitch Ratings and AA- by Standard and Poor's. The $650 million new plant will be cleaner and more efficient than the quarter-century-old Poletti project, which could be shut down as soon as 2008 under an agreement approved on Oct. 1 by the state Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment. Also as part of the agreement, NYPA has committed to restrict operation of Poletti, starting in 2003.

GILBOA: Emergency Team Saves Life of Contract Employee—The preparedness and quick response of a NYPA emergency-response team at the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project meant the difference between life and death for a contract employee. After reporting to work on Oct. 3, Jeff Moore, 51, an out-of-state electrician, experienced chest pain and shortness of breath and, while members of the project's first-response team were attending to him, went into cardiac arrest. The team members, who regularly simulate such emergencies during drills, used an automated external defibrillator (AED) to deliver an electric shock to Moore's chest that helped his heart regain an effective rhythm. Moore was taken to Bassett Healthcare in Cobleskill and then to the cardiac care unit at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, from which he was later released. The Power Authority has purchased about 50 AEDs for Blenheim-Gilboa and its other facilities around the state, with each unit costing approximately $2,500. The acquisition of the devices and training to operate them are part of NYPA's preparedness for medical emergencies. Staff members are also trained in CPR and first aid.

WHITE PLAINS: NYPA Ranked Among Safest Companies—Occupational Hazards magazine has ranked the Power Authority as one of the 17 safest companies in the nation. NYPA, which has won the American Public Power Association's highest safety award in the large public-utility category for the past six years, is the only electric utility included in the listing, which appears in the magazine's October issue. Power Authority President Eugene Zeltmann credited the Authority's selection to heightened safety awareness and a focus on accident prevention by NYPA's union and non-union workers as well as its management. Based
on extensive interviews, questionnaires and analyses of current and historical safety performance, the ranked companies include General Electric, Georgia Pacific, Delphi Automotive, Goodyear and John Deere. The magazine is targeted at corporate risk managers and industrial-safety, occupational-health and environmental-compliance professionals.

NIAGARA FALLS: Niagara Gorge Discovery Center Unveiled—Almost 100 years after Jacob Schoellkopf built a hydroelectric plant on the lower gorge of the Niagara River here, state and local officials celebrated the rebirth of the site as the Niagara Gorge Discovery Center, soon to be a major Western New York tourist attraction. On Oct. 9, Commissioner Bernadette Castro of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation attended the informal gathering at the former Schoellkopf Geological Museum, which is being renovated with the help of a $1.5 million contribution from the Power Authority. When all work is completed next spring, the Discovery Center will boast new educational exhibits and serve as a trailhead for an eight-mile gorge trail. The museum building will remain closed to the public while renovations continue. The complex is on land provided by NYPA when it built its Niagara Power Project in nearby Lewiston more than 40 years ago, after a 1956 rockslide destroyed the Schoellkopf plant.

MASSENA: NYPA Donates Funds to Fire and Rescue Squads—The Power Authority began distribution this month of nearly $35,000 to 38 emergency service organizations and the American Red Cross in municipalities near its St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project here. The organizations, all volunteer fire and rescue departments, are located in St. Lawrence, Franklin, Lewis and Clinton counties and would directly or indirectly respond to emergencies at Power Authority facilities in the North Country. NYPA began making the donations, which help offset the departments' operating budgets, during National Fire Protection Week. In September, the Massena Fire Department received an additional $15,000 grant from the Power Authority toward a new engine-pumper truck, and funds were presented to Massena Memorial Hospital last spring.

In the Community: A Halloween mask-making and story-telling event was slated at the Niagara Power Project's visitors center, Lewiston, Oct. 26….The Power Authority was scheduled to present an information booth at the New York State Middle School Association’s conference at Niagara Falls High School, Oct. 25, and play host to a reception for delegates at the Niagara project's visitors center, Oct. 24….NYPA’s Supplier Diversity group sponsored its first purchasing exchange for upstate minority- and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs), at the Hotel Utica, Oct. 21. The Power Authority, which has conducted a dozen similar events downstate, has made over $350 million in purchases from M/WBEs since 1983....Debra White, Supplier Diversity Program administrator, and NYPA were honored as a 2002 Corporate Partner of the Year by the Westchester/Rockland African-American Chamber of Commerce at its sixth annual awards and scholarship dinner, Elmsford, Oct. 17….Steve Ramsey, senior community relations representative, gave a presentation to the Conesville Mountaintop Seniors on home energy conservation, Oct. 17….Christopher Copeland, account executive, spoke to students at Lakeland High School on careers in the utility industry, Shrub Oak, Oct. 10.…Bill Paterson, senior tour guide at the Niagara project's visitors center, has been appointed to the Niagara Falls Housing Authority's board of directors. A 30-year NYPA veteran, Paterson previously served on the housing authority's board in the 1980s.