CHENANGO COUNTY – New York State’s most powerful political muscle may not flex against a company trying to run a high power line through Chenango County.
Four of the state’s most influential policy makers have failed to come down definitively on what may be the county’s most important and formative issue in decades. Of the four, two are rumored to be considering a run at the White House, one leads polls for taking residence in the governor’s mansion and the last is the state’s senior U.S. Senator. In the battle against New York Regional Interconnect, Hillary R. Clinton, George Pataki, Eliot Spitzer and Charles Schumer have failed to weigh-in.
Of the bipartisan bunch, only spokespeople from Pataki and Clinton’s offices returned requests for comment.
Considerable resistance from grassroots organizations and local government has formed in the fight against the proposed 190 mile, 400 kV DC line. Concerns have been raised as to the visual blight the eight- to 13-story electrical towers would have along the largely rural path, and risks of possible health effects an electromagnetic field could cause to residents north of Orange County have been privately and publicly voiced. Since the March 30 announcement by NYRI of their intentions, resistance groups have grown in rank and consolidated forces. The formation Tuesday of the Communities Against Regional Interconnects Group includes government leaders from the eight counties that would be touched by the high power development.
The most recent legislative development in the fight came Friday in the form of a proposed senate bill that would change the state’s Transportation Corporations Law, which currently allows private electric companies to take land via eminent domain. Various state senators have chimed-in as to the impact such a prohibitive legal change would have on such a project, but the aforementioned foursome have reserved comment on the project as a whole.