BENJAMIN SWETT 1185 County Route 22 Ghent, NY 12075 518-828-6394 benjy@benjaminswett.com www.benjaminswett.

com October 29, 2013

Hon. Eleanor Stein Administrative Law Judge New York State Public Service Commission Three Empire State Plaza Albany New York 12223-1350 Case 12 - T - 0248 - Application of New York State Electric & Gas Corporation for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need for Construction of the Columbia County Transmission Project, Approximately 11.1 Miles of 115 Kilovolt Transmission Lines and related facilities in the Towns of Chatham, Ghent and Stockport, in Columbia County. Dear Judge Stein, Thank you for the opportunity to present ideas for alternative solutions to the proposed 115 kV electric transmission corridor through Ghent. The testimony of NYSEG planner Jeff Mckinney on September 17, 2013 suggested that NYSEG has applied to construct the proposed new 115 kV line to solve two problems: 1) A flaw in the current configuration of the Churchville-Craryville line renders that line vulnerable to outages that, in recent years, have affected as many as 4,507 NYSEG customers for as many as eight days and twenty-two hours and could affect as many as 9,900 customers for an untold number of days. As NYSEG writes in its application, an equipment failure that resulted in the loss of the existing Churchtown-Craryville 115-kV line would result in imminent voltage collapse. Under these conditions, 9,900 customers (corresponding to 26 MVA during winter and 31 MVA during summer) are at risk of having their service dropped. During his testimony on September 17, Mr. Mckinney called this weakness in the Churchtown-Craryville line a critical contingency for our local system. A new 115 kV line bringing additional power to the area from a separate source and along a different route would serve as a backup to prevent outages along the Churchtown-Craryville line from affecting customers.

2) In recent years, power usage in the area has been increasing at a rate of 3.1 percent a year, making it, as Mr. Mckinney said in his testimony, one of the strongest growing areas in the NYSEG footprint. An additional 115 kv line coming in from a separate source would increase the capacity of the system and provide the potential for enough additional electricity to accommodate growth at the current rate of 3.1 percent for the next 17 years, until 2030. Although Mr. Mckinney combined these two problems in his testimony, if the problems are considered separately they suggest a two-step solution that could solve NYSEGs contingency problem in potentially less intrusive, less expensive, and more long-lasting ways than immediately building a new 11.1-mile overhead 115 Kv power line through Ghent. It would require NYSEG to fix a known existing problem before seeking to spend money building new structures or opening new rights of way. The twostep solution would involve: 1) correcting the flaw in the current configuration of the Churchtown-Craryville line, and 2) increasing the capacity of the system feeding the Craryville area. Step 1: Correcting the Flaw The flaw consists of a 920-foot section of underground cable under the Taconic State Parkway that twice in the last five years has experienced failure, leading, in one case, to nearly nine days without power for 4,507 people. The delay in restoring power was caused by the combined difficulties of locating the source of the failure in the underground line, applying to the NYS DOT for a permit to run temporary cables over the parkway, running those temporary cables over the parkway, removing the damaged section of cable from under the parkway, and bringing in and installing new underground replacement cable. In fact, according to testimony by NYSEG engineer Michal Bartczak on September 24, it took more than a month to replace the failed cable and the power to the Craryville area would have been compromised for that long if it had not been for the erection of the temporary cables over the parkway. By comparison, when an overhead cable on the same line experienced failure from a broken pole in 2013, the line was out for only three hours. As Mr. Mckinney said in his testimony on September 17, the flaw in the Churchtown to Craryville line is the most significant problem in the Mechanicville division and has been a concern since the 1990s: a loss in Churchtown to Craryville also takes out the line to Kline Kill. So it's one line . . . . Churchtown, Craryville to Kline Kill is the most limiting contingency. The flaw can be corrected in two ways: A) replace the 920-foot underground portion of the line with overhead cable or B) rebuild the 920-foot underground section so that it could contain additional underground cable to serve as backup and so that it could be more easily accessed in the case of an emergency and repaired as quickly as an overhead line. A) Replace the underground cable with overhead cable over the Taconic Parkway. Replacing the underground section with overhead cable would be the cheapest and simplest solution, but it would require special approval from the New York State

Department of Transportation and the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for an easement to put the lines overhead. In its April 27, 2011 Frequently Asked Questions document, NYSEG writes, New York State Department of Transportation and State Historic Preservation Organization regulations do not permit overhead lines to cross the Taconic parkway. But in CCTP-12-090, NYSEGs response to my information request BCS-2 (attached), NYSEG engineer Michal Bartczak cites the four statutes that give the New York State Department of Transportation and the
Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation general authority over the construction of utility facilities within the parkway system, including the power to require undergrounding of electric transmission lines. Significantly, none of these four regulations specifically forbids overhead lines over the parkway; rather, they give these agencies the authority to require that lines be put underground. To cite the most directly pertinent, Section 14.09 of the NYS Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Law provides that the State Historic Preservation Office must review any construction project that may have an adverse impact on the quality of any historic, architectural, archeological or cultural property that is listed on the national register of historic places or property listed on the state register or is determined to be eligible for listing. Such review would be necessary in this case because the Taconic State Parkway is on the National Register of Historic Places. When I asked in my information request BCS-2 if NYSEG has held discussions with

the New York State Department of Transportation and/or the State Historic Preservation Organization on the possibility of a permanent variance to replace the underground portion of the Churchtown-Craryville 115 Kv transmission line with overhead lines, NYSEGs response (attached) was, no. When I asked if NYSEG has ever formally applied to these two agencies for such a variance, the answer was, again, no. When I asked for copies of any correspondence among the entities on this subject, NYSEG responded that none could be found. Why, though able to acquire a permit to put lines temporarily over the Parkway, NYSEG was unwilling to pursue an easement to put the lines permanently over the parkway and did not even discuss the matter with the appropriate agencies strikes me as curious, especially when compared to the much greater impact and cost of the alternative solution now being proposed at least partially to solve this problem, a new 11.1-mile transmission line including 8.4 miles of new right of way through Ghent. If the Public Service Commission were to require NYSEG to attempt to repair the existing flaw in its system before building a new transmission line, wouldnt the affected agencies at least have to give an overhead Taconic Parkway proposal serious consideration? Currently, two sets of overhead lines owned by NYSEG already cross the Taconic Parkway in Columbia County: the 115 kV Klinekill-Craryville Section of Line 984, and the 34.5 kV Craryville-Mellenville Line 611. Judge Stein, if you were to drive along the Taconic Parkway between the Claverack and Philmont exits, you would cross under these two sets of overhead lines and you would see how little impact they have on the views of the surrounding countryside from the Taconic Parkway. When compared to the visual impact of the proposed 11.1-mile CCTP on all the roads and homes along it, the effect seems especially trivial. They cross an already-existing major human imposition on the landscapea parkwayof the kind across which one is accustomed to see transmission lines run. The quick view of them as one drives underneath at 55 mph gives little time to

register their existence. In contradiction of the statements by Christian Lynn in his testimony on October 24 that a project has less impact when seen from a greater distance, in fact, from a moving car on the Taconic State Parkway, the more distant prospects and the more general views are what one notices and is able to notice. From a moving car, the greater the distance to an object the more it appears to be standing still and the longer one sees it. Adding a new set of transmission lines across the Taconic Parkway a few miles south of the two already-existing sets would have little additional impact and would be a far less expensive solution than the proposed CCTP. The State Historic Preservation Office is already reviewing the CCTP in light of its significant impacts on more than 100 houses and an historic district on or eligible for listing on the State or National Register of Historic Places. Surely it would be only fair to give this office a chance to weigh the relative impact of a solution involving the construction of only 925 feet of overhead transmission line over a parkway as opposed to 8.4 miles of transmission lines along a new right-of-way through historic agricultural properties in Ghent. It certainly seems unlikely that such a solution would raise the kind of community opposition that the proposed CCTP has in Ghent. B) Rebuild the underground section under the Taconic Parkway. The more complex but ultimately, perhaps, more useful solution to the flaw in the Churchtown-Craryville line would be to rebuild the 925-foot underground section to allow easier access to the cables and to allow for additional backup cables to be placed under the road. Such rebuilding would also require approval of the New York State Department of Transportation and the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, but presumably such approval would be easier to acquire because it would be for a project that would have no visual impact on drivers on the parkway. When I asked during my cross-examination on September 24 if it was possible to construct an underground transmission line . . . under a road, that would provide easy access to the cables, either through widening and deepening the tunnel to allow technicians to walk alongside the cables and repair them or through pre-constructed access-ways from above such as are commonly called manholes, NYSEG engineer Michal Bartczak agreed that it was possible. During that same cross-examination Mr. Bartczak talked about problems with underground construction and with the 925-foot underground section under the Taconic Parkway. When we have a break or a failure of an overhead circuit, said Mr. Bartczak, it is clearly visible, we can locate it very, very fast. When we have a problem or . . . an outage of an underground circuit, by the nature of it being buried underground, it is very hard or can be hard to locate it. So that is one of the main issues. Also, you know, once we locate it, it takes a while -- a much, much longer time to replace the underground section of the cable than it does an overhead line. By rebuilding and expanding the underground section under the Taconic to allow a technician to walk through the tunnel alongside the cables, NYSEG could reduce the time required to locate and replace the damaged cable by making the underground cables as accessible as the overhead ones. This would significantly reduce the impact on customers in the event of a cable failure in

a far less expensive way than the proposed CCTP. Although a more complex construction job than putting the cables overhead, it must still be far cheaper than the $28 million cost of the proposed CCTP. Perhaps the cost would be about equivalent to that of building the proposed new Ghent switching stationabout $6 million. A significant advantage of rebuilding the underground portion of the ChurchtownCraryville line would be that it could be made large enough to contain enough cables to support a second 115 kV transmission line between the Churchtown and Craryville substations. This would allow NYSEG to expand the capacity and increase the power available to the system as a whole (see below) without having to apply again to the NYS DOT and the State Historic Preservation Office for an additional tunnel or to put additional overhead cables over the parkway. And it would allow NYSEG to add another line to the area while using an existing right of way. As a general management policy, isnt it better to fix a 925-foot fault in an existing transmission line before setting out to build an entirely new 11.1-mile transmission line? Step 2: Increasing Capacity Correcting the flaw in the Churchville-Craryville line, either by acquiring permission to run the cables over the parkway or by rebuilding the underground section to allow easier access to the cables and the installation of backup cables, would eliminate the critical contingency referred to by Mr. Mckinney but would not directly solve the problem of load growth in the Mechanicville division. However, by removing the potential for lengthy delays due to problems with repairing the underground cables, it would give NYSEG time to explore more creative, less expensive, and less environmentally, economically, and visually impactful ways to increase the power flowing into the Craryville area. These include: A. Construct a new 8.5-mile 115 Kv line between National Grids Valkin and NYSEGs Klinekill substations. By acquiring approximately 5 miles of right-of-way along the existing CSX railroad track that parallels the direct route between the two substations and then undergrounding the approximately 3.5 miles that would connect the two substations to the railroad track right-of-way, NYSEG could provide an identical level of additional power to the Klinekill substation in a less obtrusive and less expensive way than the proposed CCTP. Although in his testimony Mr. Mckinney said that National Grid had rejected such a plan because of congestion at the Valkin Substation, in fact Mr. Hurst showed in his cross-examination that it was NYSEG that had rejected the plan and the congestion at the Valkin substation could be relieved through an expansion project. Of several plans considered in system planning studies in prior yearsincluding an expansion of the Churchtown-Craryville line (see below)the Valkin-Klinekill proposal was considered the least expensive. NYSEG has provided no studies to allow us to compare the costs of a Valkin-Klinekill line to the proposed CCTP, but I suspect that because it would be shorter and because it would not require the construction of the Ghent switching station, it would be less expensive for the NYSEG customers who would ultimately bear the cost of this project.

In general, the advantages of a Valkin to Klinekill approach would be 1) the line would be less expensive to build because it would be 8.5 miles rather than 11.1 miles long and would not require the construction of the new Ghent switching station; 2) the line would have a less detrimental impact on the working agricultural fields of Columbia County because, of the 8.5 miles of the line, approximately 5 would follow a pre-existing industrial-type right of way, leaving just 3.5 miles of new right of way on which to build the line; 3) the line would have a less detrimental environmental and visual impact, again because, of the 8.5 miles of the line, approximately 5 would follow a pre-existing right of way, leaving just 3.5 miles of new right of way on which to build the line; 4) installing the line underground on all or portions of these 3.5 miles would also reduce its visual impact and would make it less vulnerable to storms; 5) such a configuration would contribute less to the fragmentation of the New York landscape because more of the line would follow an existing right-of-way; 6) the line would not require the construction of the new Ghent switching station, leading to cost savings that could support the additional costs of underground construction or expansion of the Valkin substation. B. Expand the Churchtown-Craryville corridor to include an additional 115 kV line. With an expanded tunnel under the Taconic State Parkway or permission to cross the Taconic with overhead cables, NYSEG would have no obstacle to adding an additional line beside the already-existing Churchtown-Craryville line. During his testimony, Mr. Mckinney said that including an additional 115 kV line along the Churchtown-Craryville right of way would not be the equivalent of the proposed CCTP, but his testimony referred to a situation in which the new line would share the existing flaw at the underground stretch under the Taconic. Were this flaw to be removed, presumably an additional line could have the same improving effect on system capacity as the proposed CCTP. In a NYSEG System Planning Study Report referred to by Mr. Hurst during his cross-examination of Mr. Mckinney on September 17 (Exhibit #30 in this case), a new Churchtown-Craryville 115 kV line was rejected in favor of a ValkinKlinekill line because the Churchtown-Craryville would be more expensive and because it would share or almost share the same right of way as the existing 115 kV line Churchtown-Craryville and will not substantially improve the system reliability over the existing transmission line configuration. Presumably the unreliability of the existing transmission line configuration is caused by the underground portion of the line under the parkway. Were this portion to be made more reliable a ChurchtownCraryville option would become viable. As for the greater expense over the ValkinKlinekill option, without concrete figures it is impossible to judge the relative costs of this option, the Valkin-Klinekill option, and the proposed CCTP. If NYSEG were to receive permission to run the line over the Taconic parkway rather than having to rebuild its tunnel under the parkway, the expense would presumably be more reasonable. One would hope that the PSC could require NYSEG to estimate the various costs so actual comparisons could be made. The advantages of this approach over that of building a new 115 Kv line through Ghent are 1) it would have fewer environmental, visual, and agricultural impacts because it would use an existing right-of-way for the entire 8 miles of the additional line rather than opening a new one through 8.4 miles of mainly unspoiled farmland; 2) since it

would use an existing right of way it would not further contribute to the fragmentation of the New York State landscape; 3) it would be less expensive for NYSEG customers because it would be 8 miles rather than 11.1 miles long; 4) it would be less expensive for NYSEG customers because it would not require the construction of a new switching station in an agricultural field. C. Donate the $28.3 million that would be spent on the proposed 115 kV Columbia County Transmission Facility to a fund to help underwrite the purchase of solar panels by residents in the Craryville area. According to William Bentley of the Chatham, NY company Sundog Solar, $28.3 million could directly pay for the installation of solar panels in 1,500 homes in Columbia County, generating 9 megawatts of power or 10-11,000 megawatt hours of power annually. If these funds were invested in a fund that partially underwrote solar installations that also would be funded through individual contributions and the various state and federal grants and tax incentives, they could be leveraged to support the installation of solar panels in as many as 6,000 homes, generating 36 MW or close to 50,000 megawatt hours of power annually. Finally, in partnership with a solar energy financing group, the funds could be leveraged to set up a large solar array that could function as a generator providing power independently for Klinekill. The advantage of this approach over that of building the proposed CCTP would be 1) energy independence for a large number of Columbia County Residents; 2) reduced dependence on the burning of fossil fuels for the production of energy; 3) no bifurcation of historic farmland with a new industrial corridor; 4) transmission of power (in the case of home-based installations) through existing transmission lines rather than through a newly-constructed 115 kV line; 5) fewer environmental, visual, and agricultural impacts as the siting of the energy generation facilities would be at the discretion of individual property owners; 6) a welcoming attitude rather than hostility from the many Ghent, Chatham, and Stockport residents who are currently opposing the proposed CCTP; 7) a welcoming attitude from all residents eligible to gain access to the fund, who would be able to reduce their energy bills through participation. D. Put the proposed 115 kV CCTP underground. While NYSEG operates 2,232 miles of overhead transmission lines of 115 kV and greater in New York State, it operates just 7.9 miles of underground transmission cable of the same capacity. In other words, its underground mileage represents just .35% of its overhead mileage. In the last ten years (dating back to October 2003), NYSEG has not installed any underground transmission lines of 115 kV or greater with a length of more than .5 miles anywhere in its system. As Mr. Bartczak said in his testimony on September 24, NYSEG is a primarily overhead utility. Should any of this be a reason not to put the CCTP underground or for NYSEG not to be able to respond quickly to underground as opposed to aboveground system failures? Must New Yorkers be limited in their choice of electricity carriers to those unwilling or unable to consider new approaches and methods of electricity delivery?

Given NYSEGs self-described inexperience with underground construction, unless an underground version of the proposed CCTP is actually put out to bid--and to a company experienced in longer underground transmission projectsNYSEGs in-house projections of underground as opposed to aboveground construction costs would seem an inadequate basis on which to reject an underground solution to the proposed CCTP. In response to Information Request C of the June 22, 2012 Appendix A Information Requests, NYSEG estimated that the cost of an underground routing of the proposed Circuit 726 would cost three times as much as the proposed aboveground routing of the same circuit. These cost estimates were based, as Mr. Bartczak said in his September 24 testimony, not on a competitive bidding process but on the historic cost of labor for underground construction on certain small sections of underground circuits in our system. Based on the historic costs of these small sections of underground circuits built more than ten years ago, the estimates do not account for the cost-savings that could be achieved through construction of a longer line through different geographic circumstances in the present day. The advantages of an underground as opposed to an aboveground routing from the proposed CCTP cannot be ignored: 1) the visual impact would be minor or nonexistent both where the line crosses by public spaces and where it passes through private, where it can be seen from historic homes and districts eligible for registry on the state or national registers of historic places or where it can be seen from other homes where the view would be just as bad though the house had no government protection; 2) by installing a separate line underground NYSEG would be providing an entirely new power source for the Mechanicville Division whose vulnerabilities to storms or terrorism would be different from those possessed by all of the other power sources coming in to the Mechanicville Division; 3) while installing this line underground NYSEG could install sufficient cable in advance either to increase capacity in the future or to cover for any difficult-to-repair failures in the underground line; 4) the line would contribute less to the fragmentation of the New York State landscape because, although there, it would be mostly invisible; 4) while the line would be more expensive to install initially, if properly installed it could achieve much lower maintenance costs over the long term in its protected position under the earth than those of an aboveground line which is constantly exposed to wind, weather, and wildlife. Conclusion Article 7 of Public Service Law does not specifically require a proposed transmission facility to conform to a long-range plan for the preservation of the landscape of New York State, nor does it require a proposed transmission facility to conform to a long-range policy for the reduction of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. As a result, utilities in New York State have few encouragements to design facilities in a manner consistent with the need to address climate change and prevent the further fragmentation of the landscape of Upstate New York. My suggested alternatives seek to address these concerns while reducing costs and environmental and social impacts by: 1) solving the existing flaw in the system before seeking to expand the system; 2) looking for routes that follow existing rights of way for as long as possible rather than opening new rights of way; 3) looking for the shortest practical routes; 4) undergrounding when not following

existing rights of way; 5) avoiding the construction of the proposed Ghent switching station. Thank you again for the opportunity to suggest these alternatives. I would be happy to answer any questions about them or do further research into any of the ideas if you or any of the other parties would like. Sincerely,

Benjamin Swett