New York State Towns Irate Over Dam

Jane Lawrence unfolds a map on her kitchen table and points to the place where she and her husband lived as newlyweds: right in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

Back in 1956, the Lawrences were among thousands of residents in this remote northern corner of New York ousted from their homes to make way for the Robert Moses-Robert H. Saunders Power Dam.

The exodus was long ago but is hardly forgotten here. This is especially true as the New York Power Authority seeks permission from federal regulators to extend the dam’s power project another 50 years when its original license expires in 2003.

As part of its license application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the authority is offering a settlement package to towns affected by the massive public works project. The deal, worth millions, has opened old wounds.

Some residents complain that the power authority is pushing an unfavorable deal on the locals. Again. “This relicensing is the first chance we have to get things changed,” Jane Lawrence says.

The authority says it’s doing right by the community--as evidenced by some $75 million offered above the minimum federal requirements. But tensions have been exacerbated as the authority tries to wrap up relicensing talks with area towns by the end of the year.

The crux of the controversy is the dam, an engineering marvel that stretches for more than a half-mile between Massena, N.Y., and Canada’s Ontario province. The two countries each run 16 SUV-sized turbines that convert the seaward flow of the Great Lakes into cheap electricity, which on the U.S. side goes to New York and seven other states. The dam literally hums with power.

Robert Moses, controversial public works planner and chairman of the power authority, changed the landscape by spearheading construction of the dam and the complementary St. Lawrence-FDR Power Project in the 1950s.

A fast-flowing run of the river became a lake. Islands disappeared. Shoreside cottages were razed or abandoned. Postcard communities like Louisville Landing were lost.

For Jane Lawrence’s husband, Royal, it meant a loss of his rented home, his family’s dairy farm and the grave site of his great-grandfather.

Those ousted received market value for their property and the opportunity to build at their own expense on nearby Wilson Hill, which became an island after the flooding. Dalton Foster, a current resident there, said the authority had promised to relocate houses, as was done across the river in Canada, but never followed through.

Good things came to St. Lawrence County with the dam. State parks were created. The power authority became, and remains, a steady employer. And cheap power from the project helps maintain jobs at local plants run by Alcoa, Reynolds Metals and General Motors.

Less welcome is the authority’s title to 37 miles of shoreline upriver from the dam. The authority says it must legally retain the buffer to 250 feet above sea level in case of flooding, even where there are riverfront homes.

The Lawrences, now retired, are among the affected homeowners. Their small vinyl-sided home in Waddington is on Big Sucker Brook, which feeds the river. But their property line barely stretches past their back deck. The rest is owned by the authority, which has allowed them to mow the grass and dock their boat.

Jane Lawrence and Foster belong to a residents’ group seeking rights to own the land above 245-foot elevations. Foster says, due to water control dams, the wide buffers have never flooded and likely never will. Foster, retired from a career in scientific research and regulatory matters, says the authority has never proved it needs all the buffer land it claims.

The authority says federal regulators require its ownership to ensure public access to public land as well as for flood control. But the shoreline group fears that a reshuffling of rules under a new licensing agreement could give residents even less control over shorelines.

Another fight centers on how much land along the shore the authority should give back. That question has particular poignancy in a sparsely populated county where monthly unemployment rates can run above 7%.

The restriction irks Foster. “It’s hard to get people to come in when you show people this, but you say, ‘You can’t live here, you can’t participate in this, you can’t have a restaurant on the water.”’

To sweeten the relicensing deal, the authority offered local towns $125 million over 50 years. It includes a trust fund that is expected to generate $1 million a year for the communities, money for environmental programs, matching funds for an aquarium and river center--even contingencies for a dam circumventing a passageway for eels.

A spokesman for the authority, Jack Murphy, says $75 million is “essentially voluntary,” adding, “We recognize our responsibility as being part of the community.”

Donald Brining, an administrator for St. Lawrence County, says the authority and localities started negotiations a “significant distance apart” on land and money issues. But talks between the two groups have continued past the authority’s original September deadline.

Michael Almasian, a Massena lawyer not involved in negotiations, calls the offer paltry when compared with millions of dollars in revenue generated for the authority by the dam, and the property taxes towns can’t collect on land they no longer own. “They’ve operated that plant and made billions of dollars and given us nothing,” he says.

Though the license runs until 2003, the authority wants to end talks with the towns by the end of the year to keep up with byzantine federal relicensing procedures.

If a new license is not in place by 2003, the federal government can issue annual licenses until a long-term agreement is reached.

Of course, the authority could file its license application without the local towns on board. The director of the power authority’s licensing division even said this summer that the offer could be rescinded, potentially leaving opposing towns with a bare-bones settlement.

Almasian accuses the authority of treating the municipalities as a “resource colony,” playing hardball against a rural area with neither the money nor the clout to fight back.

Even if localities agree to the proposal, Jane Lawrence wants residents to take their case to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“We’re determined they’re not going to walk all over us again,” she says.