Another project bringing power from the North to New York City will be cutting through Albany County as early as next year — this time, underground. The Champlain Hudson Power Express project, proposed by Transmission Developers Inc., has been in the works since 2008, and plans to transfer power generated in Québec to New York City, changing it from alternating current (AC) in Canada, to direct current (DC) in the United States.
The $2.2 billion project will span 333 miles from the U.S.-Canada border into New York City, along which two DC cables, each carrying 500 megawatts, will be buried under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.
To avoid the PCB clean-up site in the river, the cables will move out of southern Lake Champlain and follow CSX and Canadian Pacific rail lines for 126 miles. The cables will re-enter the Hudson River south of Catskill, and also detour underground, but out of water, for seven miles to avoid Haverstraw Bay in Rockland County.
This project is separate from the above-ground AC transmission line projects proposed by four different companies, only one of which will be granted approval by the Public Service Commission.
Wetland watch
The route of the cable brings the project into wetlands, which are protected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2005, a compensatory mitigation plan for wetlands was put in place, in which environmental losses through construction or other environmentally-disruptive projects are offset through four different methods: restoration of an existing wetland, creation of a new wetland, enhancement of an existing wetland site’s function, or the preservation of an existing wetland or aquatic site.