By Dustin Brown
The state’s highest court has let stand a July decision forcing the New York Power Authority to conduct an environmental review of two small generators in Long Island City and eight others around the city.
Last week’s ruling affirmed community leaders’ longstanding criticisms of the state agency’s failure to assess the impact of the plants.
But the same leaders were dealt a blow the following day, when the state approved a major new Astoria power plant despite criticism that western Queens is already oversaturated with such facilities.
The state Court of Appeals decided Nov. 20 not to hear NYPA’s appeal of a Brooklyn Appellate Court’s July ruling in favor of a coalition of community groups known as UPROSE, which fought the agency’s decision to place 10 miniature gas turbines on sites around New York City, including Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City.
The July decision ordered NYPA to prepare an environmental impact statement on the potential health effects of the power plants, specifically calling for the analysis of fine particulate matter at least 2.5 micrometers in diameter, known as PM 2.5.
The decision allowed NYPA to continue operating the plants, which were installed earlier this year, until Jan. 31, by which time it must submit its environmental impact statements.
“I am pleased that the Court of Appeals recognized the need for a full environmental review of the Long Island City plants,” said state Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria), who has spearheaded the local fight against power plants. “The community will finally have the benefit of a true environmental study being performed on the NYPA site.”
NYPA spokesman Mike Petralia said he is confident the studies will confirm that the generators “operate without environmental impact.”
But local leaders disagree.
“Everybody’s anticipating that their own review is going to indicate that they have no negative impact on the environment,” said Peter Vallone Jr., city councilman-elect for Astoria. “We will get a chance to go through their review with a fine-toothed comb … and challenge any result that we don’t agree with.”
Gianaris and other local officials were plaintiffs in a similar suit brought by Silvercup Studios, a television and film studio that produces such programs as “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” and owns property next to the Long Island City turbines on Vernon Boulevard.
The Silvercup suit, which only targeted the two generators in Long Island City, yielded the same result as the UPROSE case, with the Brooklyn Appellate Court ordering NYPA to perform a full environmental review.
Although NYPA originally challenged only the UPROSE case in the Court of Appeals, NYPA spokesman Luis Rodriguez said the agency plans to file another appeal in the Silvercup case Monday.
The UPROSE decision set a precedent by requiring an analysis of PM 2.5 since previous standards called only for particles 10 micrometers in diameter and larger to be studied.
Gianaris is drawing on that precedent in his fight against the 1,000-megawatt Astoria Energy facility, which SCS Energy plans to construct on the 26-acre Castle Oil site at 17-10 Steinway St.
The seven-member New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting approved the Astoria Energy application in a Nov. 21 hearing.
But Astoria Energy based its environmental review on the 10-micron standard, and Gianaris is calling for the utility to examine the impact of PM 2.5 and other more minute particles.
“The law is now settled on a more stringent standard,” Gianaris said. “SCS Energy must comply with that standard.”
But Astoria Energy spokeswoman Kathleen Hathaway said SCS did use the current standard, contending the 2.5 PM standard applies to smaller power plants like the NYPA turbines.
“That standard is not defunct,” she said.
Gianaris also opposes the SCS Energy application because it calls for a new power plant to be constructed where none now exists in a western Queens neighborhood he and others contend is oversaturated with such facilities.
Gianaris wrote a law that cuts down the approval time for an application to repower existing power plants — which involves modernizing equipment to bring it up to current standards in cleanliness and efficiency — rather than building anew.
“I think this now flies in the face of state policy and I think it should have been rejected,” Gianaris said. “The real way to solve both the environment and the energy concerns is to repower the existing facilities.”
According to Hathaway, the facility was proposed to help meet the city’s energy needs, and Astoria was a logical choice because the power grid already existed there.
“I think in the long run people will realize that while we are a new power plant, we’re also the cleanest power plant in town,” she said.
Gianaris supports an application by Orion Energy, which has yet to be approved by the state, calling for the repowering of its existing facility in northwestern Astoria on the East River.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
