DOVER – An energy company has proposed to build a 1,000-megawatt natural gas fired power plant on an old industrial site along Route 22. Some residents worry about the effect it could have on air quality and noise in town.

Cricket Valley Energy, an affiliate of Advanced Power Services, a Boston-based energy development company, has proposed building the plant on a 131-acre property that includes the Great Swamp. Cricket Valley says the swamp area itself will not be disturbed. Seventy-four acres of the site will be conserved and no significant wildlife habitat will be lost, according to information on the company’s Web site.

Matthew Martin, Cricket Valley’s associate project manager for the proposal, said Cricket Valley will host an open house at its’ local outreach office at 5 Market St. in Dover Plains on Saturday, July 23, from 9 a.m. to noon. There, residents can bring concerns and talk to company officials directly.

Cricket Valley said the plant would result in 25-30 permanent jobs and an average of 300 jobs during the proposed project’s three-year construction period.

The project is now being reviewed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which has issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The DEIS covers various issues relating to the plant, such as effects on traffic, air quality, noise levels, and more. The DEC hosted two public hearings June 28 at Dover Middle School as part of the review process. The DEC is also accepting written comments until Monday, Aug. 1.

Martin said the DEC might issue a final Environmental Impact Statement by the end of the year. If the review process goes well, Cricket Valley might begin demolishing existing buildings in preparation for construction on the site in a year from now.

“We still have a long way to go in the planning process,” said Martin.

Some residents, however, are concerned about the effects the project might have on the Harlem Valley’s air quality.

In written comments to the DEC, Constance DuHamel wrote, “the issue for our region is how much more polluted the air will be in eastern Dutchess, western Connecticut and the Berkshires, with the Cricket Valley Energy 1000 megawatt power plant coming on line.”

She wrote that any study should look at the cumulative impacts of air pollution in the area given the poor air quality the valley reportedly has already.

She proposed that an air-quality monitoring station be placed on the campus of the Dover Middle and High Schools, with the data collected by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. DuHamel later said the town should hire its own independent expert to look at air quality studies Cricket Valley has done for the proposal. She said an independent expert should look at the assumptions and models Cricket Valley has used in making its determinations.

“We need an expert to tell us if that’s okay or not okay,” said DuHamel.

Cricket Valley Energy, on its Web site, says the facility will incorporate the latest technology to ensure minimal emissions and preserve air quality. Cricket Valley will assess and model potential air quality impacts to ensure adherence to air quality standards established by federal and state agencies, said the company. This would include hourly assessments of air at monitoring locations. This monitoring will be reviewed during the DEC’s review process, said Cricket Valley.

Also providing written comments to the DEC was Robert Herzog, who lives just about one mile from the proposed site. Herzog wrote that he is former director of the New York City’s Energy Office and helped represent the city during several proposed power plant sitings.

Herzog questioned if the project is even needed, citing the New York Independent Service Operator, the organization responsible for planning and overseeing New York State’s electricity operations. An ISO 2010 study said the state’s power system can meet need through at least 2020,while other electricity generating projects in the state are coming up ahead of Cricket Valley’s and alternative energies can to be developed in coming years that could cover further future needs.

Herzog also wrote about noise. He said the construction of the plant will create noise approaching 90db, and “The plant operators can make whatever claims they want regarding noise, but the practical fact is, once the plant is open, there will be few ways to measure and no ways to mitigate should they exceed their noise standards. No one would close the plant down for a noise violation, the local inhabitants can complain repeatedly and nothing will ever be done. That’s the way the system works.”

According to the DEIS the project would include state-of-the-art design and engineering components to mitigate noise. But, “while the project is expected to comply with the most restrictive night time sound level limit (50 dB(A)) of the Town of Dover Zoning Code at the north and east property lines, the west property line abutting the Metro-North rail line and the southern proposed property line abutting other industrial zoned property are expected to be non-compliant. However, these properties are not occupied by noise sensitive uses. To the contrary, the non-compliant property lines abut a railroad track and a proposed industrial facility.”

Martin, the Cricket Valley officials, said, “We’re here to listen to these concerns and we want to make sure we respond to these concerns.”

He said that for two years the company has been listening, revising its plans in response to what comes up in the process. He said the company has three advisory groups it hosts quarterly in Dover to meet with residents. One group is for noise concerns, one for air quality, one for water concerns and one for traffic/safety. He also said the company has designed an environmentally responsible project to reuse and old industrial site.

“Fewer projects are of more significance to eastern Dutchess County – and for the larger region, for that matter – than a proposed $ 1 billion electric power plant in the Town of Dover. The state is continuing to accept public comment about the proposal….”

- See article in The Poughkeepsie Journal, July 7, 2011

“Coal generates 54% of our electricity, and is the single biggest air polluter in the U.S.”–Union of Concerned Scientists, 2010″

At a Citizens Advisory Workshop on April 7, the energy consultant for Cricket Valley Energy estimated that carbon emissions in this region would be reduced by 716,818 tons by 2018 because Cricket Valley’s gas-fired plant will replace many obsolete coal-fired plants. These were just one of several impressive figures Fred Sellars of Arkadis Arcadis mentioned in the review of the air quality issues that Cricket Valley is dealing with in its permit process now before the NY State DEC.

Cricket Valley Energy is in its second year of seeking approvals from the DEC, the Town of Dover and other state and federal agencies to construct a state of the art1,000 megawatt generating plant using natural gas as a fuel. It will be located in a now abandoned site in Dover Plains off Route 22.

Advanced Power, the parent of Cricket Valley Energy, announced last week that it is currently developing two similar plants in Germany, a country that is seeking to close its nuclear generating plants.

“New York had 48 coal-fired generating units at 17 locations in 2005, with 4,273 MW of capacity representing 10.0% of the state’s total electric generating capacity” according to the Energy Information Administration report in April 2008. “In 2005, New York emitted 11.1 tons of CO2 per person, slightly more than half the U.S. average,” according to New York Energy Consumption Information resource, Redux. That rate is the eighth highest in the nation.

A Sierra Club report on smog attributes 4,000 deaths in the Northeast in 2010 to coal burning plants. “In this report from the Clean Air Task Force, coal was estimated to be responsible for nearly 4,000 deaths in 2010 in the Northeast from coal power plant emissions alone. These health impacts cost billions of dollars each year. Additionally, $1.5 billion is sent out of the region to pay for coal imports.”

The report, which includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia concludes that the Northeast could “supply more than a third of its power from clean energy resources that are widely available right within its borders.”

Cricket Valley Energy’s (CVE) natural gas-fired plant has to achieve the lowest achievable emission rate required by the New York State DEC and the EPA in order to qualify for its air permits. They are also required to buy offsets for those emissions. After they applied for an Air Quality Permit in March of 2010, both the EPA and the DEC made comments and required them to release rates for the new 1-hour standards of emissions for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

CVE responded to the regulatory agencies request in November and will issue the draft Air Quality Permit for public review simultaneously with the DEIS later this month. Written comments by interested parties will then be incorporated into the State Environmental Review (SEQR). The project has to meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and New York State air quality standards which also include a CO2 budget trading system, visible emissions, sulfur and nitrogen minimums, and the Clean Air Interstate Rule and Acid Rain Program.

At the Citizens Advisory Workshop the consultants for the company, Advanced Power North America, presented the modeling for each regulated pollutant. They stated: “The project will not cause or significantly contribute to violations of National Ambient Air Quality Standards which has been set to be protective of the health of even the most vulnerable individuals.” The total projected carbon dioxide emissions per year for CVE are approximately 3.6 million tons, 47 tons for sulfur dioxide and 279 tons for nitrogen oxide.

Compare that to “the average 500 MW coal power plant of 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming–as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million trees. 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs and 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), as much as would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.” Not to mention “720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.”

They ended their presentation by saying that their facility will be the cleanest facility in relation to all other facilities in the region: “Cricket Valley will be the most efficient, least CO2 producing power plant of its type ever approved and will set the bar for future projects going forward.”

The Union of Concerned Scientist’s figures are based on a 500 Megawatt coal plant; so Cricket Valley, a 1000 MW plant, is twice the size with less CO2 emissions.

Guy Huse, a former radar systems engineer from MIT Lincoln Laboratories, who lives in Dover Plains commented, “I think Cricket Valley is in good shape and will continue to be.”

-see full article in The Millerton News, April 28, 2011

-see full article in Pawling Press, April 22, 2011

Alternatives to Indian Point’s nuclear power plant relicensing in 2012 are being hotly discussed in New York State government and New York City media as Japan struggles to avert a severe meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi plant after a tsunami two weeks ago. The NYS Attorney General addressed a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week that addressed concerns about Indian Point being located on two earthquake fault lines.

The natural gas-fired power plant that is in the process of being permitted at a inactive industrial site in Dover Plains is expected to be part the big picture for future energy in the region. Cricket Valley Energy, the 1000 megawatt-producing natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant has almost completed its New York State environmental review process (SEQR). The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) will be submitted by the middle of April. The plant may be up and running as early as 2014.

The project’s lead agency is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The agency has made it a priority for the Cricket Valley to treat 4 acres of adjacent wetlands area, removing industrial debris and waste on the site and restoring wetlands that have been degraded by former unremediated operations on the site.

Cricket Valley Energy also announced that it will be putting 75 acres on the west side of the tracks into permanent conservation at its Citizens Advisory Working Group meeting on wetlands on March 24.

The existing conditions are pretty foul. Piles of debris, yellow gluey waste material and white chalky piles that are remnants from former formica and magnesium operations. Four feet deep hard densely packed gluey material is impenetrable and barren because there is an absence of oxygen. Even phragmites and loosestrife can’t grow there.

The plans are to restore one acre of these degraded wetlands and remove all the “yucky stuff” and put in a more natural system. Cricket Valley Energy hired a wetlands scientist with an national environmental consultancy firm called Arkadis, to explain how that will be done. The wetlands include red cedar, hardwoods swamp, reed grass, loosestrife and deciduous forest land with an intermittent stream.

Areas that are temporarily disturbed during construction will be replanted with in shrubs and woody plants in the adjoining wetlands. Cricket Valley plans to use contractors who specialize in eco-system restoration.

Two members of the Bechtel Corporation Business development department in attendance and stated that in their opinion that Cricket Valley is state of the art for natural gas power plants that and their company may be interested in bidding on the construction contract.

At a prior Citizens Advisory Working Group meeting on March 10th, the effects on traffic on Route 22 during the construction period were discussed. There are plans to ameliorate the traffic impact of 750 workers during peak construction. Workers will be shuttled to the construction site from a temporary parking area. The parcel is commercially zoned, but is currently used as an agricultural field.

According to the Cricket Valley Newsletter; “The three-year construction project will require workers in a variety of skill areas, from welders, engineers and electricians to carpenters, roofers and heavy equipment operators. CVE wants to ensure a smooth traffic flow…and has developed an innovative solution to preserve mobility on Rte. 22 and provide workers with site access that includes constructing a temporary parking lot about 2.5 miles north of the construction site, which will be a 30-acre parcel at the corner of Route 22 and Old Route 22. The parcel is commercially zoned, but is currently used as an agricultural field. The workers will park and take a CVE shuttle to and from work.”

In addition, CVE has proposed hiring a traffic control agent and installing a temporary signal at the intersection of the parking site driveway and Route 22 during peak travel times. CVE will also create temporary pssing and turning lanes, to ensure mobility is preserved for those traveling along Route 22. CVE will coordinate worker arrival and departure times to avoid peak traffic periods and school bus schedules.

There is an expected annual average increase in traffic flow of 1 to 2% from other planned projects in the vicinity including the Knolls of Dover and Rasco Materials.

Engineers and environmental specialists will cover items identified by attendees at the next set of meetings beginning in March. Meetings will focus on: Traffic & Safety; Water, Wetlands & Wildlife; and Air Quality. You are invited to join one, two or all three groups — no experience or special expertise is required.

Traffic & Safety
Thursday, March 10, 7-8 pm

Water, Wetlands & Wildlife
Thursday, March 24, 7-8 pm

Air Quality
Thursday, April 7, 7-8 pm

The AWGs are part of a supplemental public outreach program Cricket Valley Energy has introduced to ensure the ideas and insights of the Dover community are considered in the development of the project. AWG meetings are not part of the official public involvement process required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).

Meetings are held at the Cricket Valley Energy Community Outreach Office, 5 Market Street, in Dover Plains, New York.

If you are interested in participating, please call 845-877-0596, email info@cricketvalley.com or visit the project Web site at www.cricketvalley.com. Attendance is limited to the space available.

Protecting water quality, particularly in the watershed of the four streams and rivers of the Harlem Valley, is the special domain of non-profits and governmental agencies. The ever-present concern is that increased development in the area may cause water quality degradation. People who live here expect to open the tap and have clean water. Experience elsewhere has shown that once water is polluted, it is very difficult and expensive to clean it up. The story in The Millbrook Independent about the horrors of the High Meadows Trailer Park is just one example of how contaminated water disrupts everyday living.

Five towns in the Harlem Valley, Amenia, Millerton, Dover, Pawling and Pine Plains share a common watershed, the Tenmile River Watershed, which is part of the Housatonic River Watershed. What goes on here affects the Long Island Sound. In response to federal efforts to protect the water in the Sound, New York and Connecticut have signed an agreement to limit the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus going into the Long Island Sound.

There are a number of ways to determine water quality. One is to take water samples and have a laboratory assess the chemical levels of ammonia, phosphorus, coliform bacteria, and sodium, among others. The other way is to do a biological assessment of the living organisms in the water.

On Friday, January 21, a scientific advisory board assembled by the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA) came together at the Cary Institute to review the results of a yearlong water quality study of the Swamp River, a water body listed as “threatened” and on the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Priority Water Body list. The study was accomplished with an Iroquois Community Grant.

To help analyze and interpret the results of the study, the HVA invited scientists and members of other non-profits to serve in an advisory capacity for the project. Participants included representatives from the Cary Institute, Oblong Land Conservancy, FROGS (Friends of the Great Swamp), Dutchess County Soil and Water, the NYS DEC, Marist College, the CCEDC (Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County Environment Program) and area Conservation Advisory Board members.

“Last Friday’s meeting presented findings that are an essential element of water protection, a base-line study that gives us a snapshot of where we were at in 2010,” one of the participants, Sibyll Gilbert of the Oblong Land Conservancy in Pawling, said. It was great to see all of these organizations and scientists with different perspectives working together on this project. It established a precedent that will encourage further combined efforts in the future.”

Freshwater ecologist David Strayer, biogeochemist Dr. William Schlesinger, and aquatic ecologist Stuart Findlay of the Cary Institute headed up the analysis of the water quality data. It was good news that the ammonia was undetectable and that the phosphates were below detectable limits, although Strayer remarked that the nitrites were “high-ish,” and the phosphates were “higher than I would expect if the Swamp River were pristine.” He also said that the dissolved oxygen levels were low enough to cause problems in aquatic wildlife, but should be redone with a meter in the field because lab results for dissolved oxygen can be unreliable. The calcium and magnesium reflected hard water values.

Sodium and chloride levels were much higher than usual in the Village of Pawling, looking similar to the Fishkill and the Casperkill Creeks near Poughkeepsie, but becoming more diluted downstream. This would be an obvious indicator of road salt usage. Strayer also said that the coliform bacteria levels also looked high but that there should be a differential done in the future to determine whether this was due to animal or human sewage.

Dr. Schlesinger said of the study, “Now we have a rudimentary overview. We might have a problem with dissolved oxygen, and a problem with salination in the Village of Pawling, but we do not need to sample other sites unless we become suspicious. If we are worried about the Dover Knolls site in the future, we could do more there.”

At the moment, there is no way of checking the stream flow because no stream gauges have been installed. A gauge along Rte. 22 was mentioned, but its cost, at $1,500, represents a problem since the grant funds are expended. Flow is particularly important to measure after storm water events, especially in the slow moving Swamp River.

James Utter of FROGS, known for his work with bog turtles, spoke of preliminary results from the NYS DEC’s Rapid Biological Assessment on the Swamp River completed last July. The method takes a random sampling of 100 macro invertebrates (aquatic insects) and tabulates them by creating a biotic index. The results of the study will be made available later this year.

Two laboratories, Smith Labs and the Cary research lab, analyzed the samples with a practice called analyzing split samples, for comparison and accuracy. “Both labs did good analytical work. Our lab was able to fill in some of the gaps when one sample went off the charts,” explained Dr. Schlesinger.

The Housatonic Valley Association, which headed up the study, has a grant to hold a public forum for the towns of Dover and Pawling to present the water quality and macro invertebrate sampling results. Such a workshop would explain why it is important for the towns to sign on to a regional plan to protect the watershed that crosses many town, county and state boundaries.

What has been recommended repeatedly by the Hudson Greenway and the Harlem Valley Planning Partnership, which all five towns were part of, is for the towns to pass an Intermunicipal Watershed Protection Agreement similar to one that covers eleven towns along the Wappingers Watershed. Such an agreement would be designed to prevent any one town from permitting a land use activity that might pollute water affecting downstream communities.

“Survey after survey of the communities throughout the Harlem Valley has clearly established that public concern #1 is the protection of water quality. Water quality is changing all the time and reflects population and land use. We need a water protection plan because water is not confined to any one town or landowner’s backyard and people need to understand that,” said Gilbert.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, “Demographic Analysis” And The Census, one method of measuring the size of the US population relies on historical birth registration, death registration, as well as estimates of in-migration to and out-migration from the United States. Census Bureau demographers have completed the assembly of national estimates for the April 1, 2010 population of the United States, and we will release them on December 6, 2010. Since demographic analysis produces only national estimates, it cannot be used for the reapportionment and redistricting purposes required of the 2010 Census. It is, however, a useful comparison to the Census.

Following advice of demographers from around the country and our own internal experts, we have developed multiple estimates – ones that make different assumptions about the components of international migration and different assumptions about completeness of vital statistics records. Estimates of international migration vary depending on the source of the data and the judgments of the demographer constructing them. All five of the demographic analysis estimates are considered plausible and no one estimate is clearly the best.

For each age, sex, and race group, we will present five different estimates, which each result from a different set of plausible assumptions.

It is unusual to show multiple estimates in this manner, but it is the honest way to portray our uncertainty about the demographic analysis estimates.

We will not be able to answer the question, “Which estimate is best?” Each is based on different assumptions, and we cannot eliminate any of those assumptions. We think that reports of the demographic analysis should show a range of possibilities and not one single number.

However, the presentation of five different estimates complicates the comparison of the national demographic analysis estimates to the single official national 2010 Census count for the same group. Even so, we will make those comparisons, attempting to identify patterns of differences. When the patterns of differences can be connected with other information (either from field results of where difficulties arose in data collection or ethnographic studies of how different kinds of households reacted to the census request), we will then have information that we will be able to act on – to bring about improvements for a more effective enumeration for 2020 and improved demographic analysis in the future. Throughout the decades using this process, the decennial census has become more accurate and demographic analysis more sophisticated.