Rutland Herald
Business Monday
June 14, 2004

Macaulay's N.Y. gas project in limbo

By Bruce Edwards
Herald Staff

Former Rutland County state senator Thomas Macaulay's on-again, off-again gas-fired electric generating plant planned for a suburb of Albany, N.Y. may be off again -- this time for good.

An opponent of the 520-megawatt plant proposed for a 21-acre site in the suburb of Glenville, has asked a New York board to dismiss the project's application.

Daniel Hill of Schenectady filed a motion last month with the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, arguing that the project lacked financing and was going nowhere, according to a story in the Times Union.

However, the Albany law firm representing Macaulay's company filed a response seeking a 21-day extension to respond to the motion to dismiss the project's application.

"The basis for the requested extension is that GEP has strong reason to believe that within the next two weeks it will be in a position to inform your honors that GEP is prepared to move ahead in this proceeding based on newly available funding," Macaulay's lawyer wrote to the two administrative law judges overseeing the application.

Although vehemently opposed by area residents who raised environmental and safety concerns, Macaulay eventually was able to find a financial backer in Duke Energy North America. But in 2002, Duke pulled out of the deal citing at the time citing a flat energy market.

Since then Macaulay has struggled to find alternative funding for his $350 million plant.

General Electric Co. for a time helped pay legal and engineering fees for Macaulaly's company's Glenville Energy Park LLC. In return, GE, which has a plant in Schenectady, would build the turbines for the natural gas-fired generating plant.

Macaulay, the executive director of EDC Fund Inc. in Rutland, did not return a message left with his answering service.

A message left with his lawyer also was not returned.

The phone for Glenville Energy Park Holding has been disconnected. Information on the project's Web site hasn't been updated in more than two years.

Macaulay proposed his New York project following problems with getting a similar project off the ground in southern Vermont. The Vermont project was more ambitious. It consisted of a natural gas pipeline from Bennington to Rutland, and two gas-fired power plants in those communities. But residents along the route balked at teh plan, citing environmental and safety concerns.

Contact Bruce Edwards at bruce.edwards@rutlandherald.com.