This is a great series about the failures all around with the power authority and our politicians. What if……. how many time we have asked that question.

Buffalo News Investigation: Power Failure
DAY THREE: HALF A DEAL
Politics as usual stymies a unique opportunity to maximize benefits from the power project

The recent history of Western New York is haunted by “what ifs.”

What if the new University at Buffalo campus was built downtown instead of in Amherst?

What if the Thruway didn’t cut Buffalo off from its waterfront?

What if business and government on the American side of Niagara Falls were as enterprising as those on the Canadian side? Add this to the list:

What if this community’s leadership took advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on the immense economic potential of the Niagara Power Project?

The first two parts of the series, sidebars and interactive features are here

Power Failure blog by reporter James Heaney

The opportunity certainly presented itself with the near simultaneous expiration of the New York Power Authority’s license to operate the Niagara Power Project and the sunsetting of the federal law that earmarked a huge block of power for industrial users in Erie and Niagara counties.

There was plenty of talk leading up to the expirations: Low-cost power for residents now paying sky-high bills. Selling power to pay for cleaning up brownfields and promoting economic development. Getting payment in lieu of taxes on the taxexempt generation plant. It all remained just that — talk.

The community did come away with a tidy sum of cash — $391 million over 50 years, according to inflation-adjusted calculations made by the authority — and a bit of low-cost power. But in doing so, community leaders failed to press for fundamental change that had much greater potential to help the region, a Buffalo News analysis found. There are a lot of reasons for it, but chief among them is our leadership’s lack of vision, lack of cooperation — politics as usual, The News concluded.

“I’m extremely disappointed. I think there was so much more the community could have gotten from this once-every-50-year opportunity,” said Kevin J. Donovan, a senior official with the United Auto Workers who was involved in negotiations.

Bruce Carpenter, an environmental attorney based out of Albany, said he was struck by the local politics he encountered while negotiating on behalf of environmental groups.

“Community against community, group against group. All these little factions,” he said. “It was clear there were a lot of people out for their own piece of the pie.”

The News reviewed several thousand pages of documents obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law and interviewed more than 40 officials with knowledge of the negotiations or related issues. The News found:

• Oft-repeated claims that the settlements total more than $1 billion are overblown. The authority calculates its out-of-pocket expense over 50 years at $391 million, when inflation is taken into account. That’s a fraction of the profits the authority is expected to make over that time.

• The one unqualified success that came out of the deal for the community is a set-aside of $145.6 million to build a greenway along the length of the Niagara River and $60.6 million to help develop Buffalo’s waterfront. But Niagara County politicians have already altered the deal to allow them to spend a portion of the money away from the river.

• The Power Authority proved to be a formidable — many say inflexible — negotiating partner. But local interest groups, ranging from governments to environmental groups, were a fractious lot, who, with the exception of Rep. Brian M. Higgins, were unwilling to go toe-to-toe with the authority when it counted.

• Local industries receiving lowcost power from the authority, including some of Buffalo Niagara’s leading corporate citizens, essentially lobbied against a more generous settlement. They and a coalition of municipal utilities around the state also receiving low-cost power didn’t want a deal that would raise their bargain-basement rates.

“The failure of the elected and business community in Buffalo and Western New York is clear,” said Higgins.

He said the complexity of the issues, coupled with politics, resulted in the community not doing “nearly as well as we could or should have.

“This was literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and a lot has been

left on the table,” he said.

Inflated figures