Plans for Massena hydro dam dead

MASSENA — A proposed hydroelectric dam in the Grasse River that could have powered 800 homes and was a key component to downtown Massena revitalization is dead in the water, washing $5 million spent on seven years of regulatory fees and project studies down the drain.

The Massena Electric Utility Board voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to end its effort to site a new dam just upriver from a dam that had been in the river for nearly two centuries. That dam deteriorated more than 20 years ago, and finally failed in the 1990s.

"Continuing any further is just throwing good money after bad money," MED board Chairman James M. Shaw said. "We just don't see any way that we're going to get resolution."

Officials said a lack of cooperation from state and federal regulatory agencies became too costly and time consuming. Wednesday's decision put an end to a process that began 12 years ago when the village and town boards in Massena and the Louisville Town Board passed a joint resolution supporting the construction of the dam. Alcoa later joined the effort.

"It's been a tough, long road, a sad road, as far as I'm concerned," board member and former town Supervisor Jack A. Sauve said.

Initially, it looked like the stars were aligned for the project, Mr. Shaw said.

"We believed we had a lot of things going for us," he said. "Unfortunately, we never fully estimated the power of the regulatory agencies."

Throughout the seven years of regulatory and environmental studies, the responsiveness to the project from those agencies was questionable, Mr. Shaw said.

"They continued to keep hitting us with additional studies, or what was wrong with our studies, and never really giving us any benefit that we were looking at renewable energy. The positives we saw in the project they never seemed to see," he said. "All they saw was disruption of the river and they didn't want the dam to be built."

Officials from the state Department of Environmental Conservation were not available for comment Wednesday.

In 2006, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave MED three years to complete the necessary studies and licensing involved to begin building the dam. When the studies and permits were not completed by last year, FERC gave MED another three years to complete them.

The project took a blow in December, when MED received notice that DEC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers were withdrawing their participation in completing the licensing process. Each agency instead was going to wait until after MED had submitted the licensing application to review it, MED Superintendent Andrew W. McMahon said.

It was then the project hit a wall. Finding out about problems needing remedy from the agencies after submitting the application would simply cost too much, officials said.

An original estimate put the cost of the project at $10 million to $11 million, with $450,000 in regulatory fees. Approximately $5 million, or half the amount of the originally budgeted project, has been spent on regulatory fees to date, MED officials said.

Of the approximately $5 million spent, $3 million came from Alcoa, company spokeswoman Laurie A. Marr said, and MED funded more than $2 million.

Alcoa had a vested interest in the dam's potential to control ice moving down the river. The ice stirs up toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The chemicals are at the river bottom near the plant, and Alcoa is responsible for cleaning them up.

Alcoa will reimburse MED for the $1.2 million in ice control studies it spent over the last two years, Ms. Marr said.

The announcement also alters plans for downtown waterfront redevelopment.

MED's proposed dam would have restored water levels to allow boating and other recreational activities on the river. Those opportunities have not been available on the river since a manmade weir near the Main Street bridge, built in the early 1800s, was breached in the 1990s, eliminating the former pond area.

Village Mayor Randy G. DeLosh said waterfront revitalization can go on without the restoration of the pond area. The village still has a $1.5 million grant in Seaway Trail funding to create walking trails along the river, which Mr. DeLosh said he hopes could still attract businesses to the waterfront.

Changing the village's waterfront plans likely will be up for discussion at Tuesday's Board of Trustees meeting, Mr. DeLosh said.