The Journal News from White Plains, New York • Page 277

BY RICHARD WOLF dependence on cheap power. They want to keep it all. In Albany, this makes for a battle royal: geographically divisive, economically threatening, politically T'S THE POWER STRUGGLE to beat all power struggles. In upstate Pittsburgh, the average homeowner pays $15.82 a month for electricity, the price of a cheap sweater. In White Plains, the same amount of power costs $104.12, enough to buy an airplane ticket south for the volatile, legally embroiled.

It pits the principle of fair play against the protection of upstate jobs. And there are several billion-dollar side issues to complicate matters in the form of proposed bailouts for two unfinished nuclear plants, and plans for transmitting Canadian power downstate. So complex and explosive are the i implications of any reallocation scheme that it's been billed as "the issue of the decade" in state-eovernment circles. A resolution remains as elusive as ever. Call it The Great Hydropower War of 1984.

And don't bet on an early peace treaty. "It's an upstate-downstate issue par excellence," says Assemblyman G. Oliver Koppell, a Bronx Democrat and one of the key "power" players in the Legislature. "It's a tough issue politi winter. The disparity reflects many factors, such as higher labor and maintenance costs downstate, and an oppressive tax burden.

But the most important difference is that Pittsburgh and much of upstate draws from the New York Power Authority's two great hydroelectric plants on the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers. Each year, the plants generate 25 million megawatt-hours of the cheapest power in the nation. White Plains, on the other hand, is served by Con Edison, which receives little water-generated power and must Tely on plants that burn enormous quantities of expensive oil. This pushes Con Edison's rates in New York City and Westchester higher than those of any other utility in the entire nation.

For the same reasons, Orange Rockland rates run a close second. The high cost of power not only strains the pocketbooks of everyone in the metropolitan area, it saps large portions of the economy from well-established factories to high-tech firms dependent on electricity-guzzling computer operations. Now, just as New York City and its suburbs are becoming desperate, the upstate contracts are expiring on the cheap Niagara and St. Lawrence hydro-power. Upstate's 25-year grip is threatened, and downstate wants its share.

The solution seems simple to down-staters: Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and the Legislature should redirect much of the hydropower for the benefit of New York and its suburbs, where two-thirds of the state's population lives. Upstate legislators point to their region's high unemployment and long -isf 2 1 i I a-. MI if i mi i i TTninnii faWinl idiiirTTi i nimriinifflff mm cally.

That's why it hasn't been dealt with all year." It's also tough because the Legislature has no precedent to guide it. When the Niagara and St. Lawrence projects were under construction in the late 1950s, there was no great down-state demand for hydropower. Other sources of energy were as cheap, and the transmission network was inadequate. Thus upstate utilities, cooperatives and municipal power agencies had no competition in signing long-term contracts with the Power Authority.

But the situation changed radically. First, Con Edison, Orange Rockland and the Long Island Lighting Co. were forced to convert from coal to oil-burning plants to reduce air pollution. Then oil prices skyrocketed, particularly af Power Authority workers aloft in the Niagara Project's switchyard. ter the 1973 Arab embargo.

Nuclear Af ew York City and Westchester are JJ demanding more of the cheap hydropower now up for grabs. But 'reallocation' may cause too much pain upstate for too little gain downstate. power at Indian Point helped Con Edison, but the supply is limited. All these rising expenses were, of course, passed on to the customers in their monthly bills. (See rate chart on page 11.) In contrast, the price of upstate hydropower has changed but once last Continued on next page Richard Wolf covers Albany for this newspaper.

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