Will deliver Canadian hydropower to NYC
The installation of 90 miles of cables in the Hudson River as part of a 339-mile transmission project that will carry hydropower from Quebec to Queens is projected to begin in August.
The $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express, whose construction began in November 2022, will pass by Dutchess, Putnam and seven other counties to its destination in Astoria.
The completed line, which begins at a hydroelectric facility, is supposed to supply 1,250 megawatts of renewable electricity to ConEd, enough to power more than 1 million homes when it goes online in spring 2026 and reduce carbon emissions statewide by 37 million metric tons.
Two 5-inch cables with a capacity of 400 kilovolts will be buried 7 feet below the riverbed during most of the route, according to a construction and environmental-management plan filed with the state Department of Public Service on April 8.
But the project’s owners, CHPE LLC and CHPE Properties Inc., are seeking state approval to reduce the burial depth from 15 feet to 9 feet along 4 miles designated as a federal navigation channel.
Their plan says the route has been designed to avoid underwater cultural resources, navigation aids such as buoys and endangered species like the Atlantic sturgeon.
CHPE said it will also provide ample clearance near underwater infrastructure, such as the water intakes for the City and Town of Poughkeepsie, and that it will take steps to prevent the spread of invasive aquatic plants and animals, such as Zebra mussels, and monitor sediment.
Three cable-laying vessels, operating 24/7, will be used for the installation, which should be completed by November.
Public comments on the plan are due by Wednesday (May 8), but Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper are asking the state to extend the deadline for two months because the documents the CHPE submitted for the Hudson River segment are “extensive.”
The organizations said they were frustrated that CHPE’s design “appears to assume” that the Public Service Commission will approve its request to reduce the burial depth for the federal navigation channels.
The project first won approval in 2013, and New York State considers it a key component to fulfill the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Passed in 2019, the legislation calls for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to climate change by 40 percent and supplying 70 percent of electricity through renewable sources by 2030.
The U.S. portion of CHPE begins under Lake Champlain in Clinton County and is brought above ground in Washington County before being submerged again in the Hudson at Columbia County. It will pass through 15 counties, 60 towns and 60 school districts, including Beacon’s.
CHPE agreed to spend $117 million over 35 years on restoration and other environmental projects at Lake Champlain and along the Hudson, Harlem and East rivers. But the firm, facing local opposition, withdrew a request to the Dutchess County Industrial Development Agency for $105.5 million in property tax breaks over 30 years, plus exemptions for $13.6 million in sales taxes and $1.3 million in mortgage taxes.
The company is holding an open house on the project on Tuesday (May 7), from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Patriot Hills Senior & Community Center, 19 Clubhouse Lane in Stony Point.
We are unsure if Scenic Hudson is requesting a two-month extension for comment on this river cable based on its former environmental concerns for the region and river or the need to protect its subsidiary’s (HHFT) massive concrete and steel, nearly 2-mile and very wide “walkway” abutting or partially in the Hudson River during Phase 1 construction? Who knows if there will be even more cement and steel to come in the future phases?