Giuliani: California-like shortages could occur in NYC if power is not boosted

by LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The kind of power shortages being weathered by California could occur in New York if power supplies are not quickly increased, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Saturday.

The mayor, speaking at an afternoon news conference, said the city was 350 megawatts to 400 megawatts shy of what is necessary to meet the power needs of the approaching summer. One megawatt equals 1 million watts.

''If we don't increase significantly the amount of power in the city of New York, we will have happen to us what happened in California,'' Giuliani said.

He said additional power is ''vital for us to be able to put the lights on'' as well as provide power in a city increasingly reliant on high technology that requires more electricity.

His comments came the same day the East River Environmental Coalition and other community and environmental groups protested plans by Consolidated Edison to put new turbines into its East River Power Plant.

The coalition said in a statement that Con Ed was seeking to triple energy production at a plant with smokestacks on East 14th Street despite high rates of asthma in the neighborhood.

''They don't want to consider the health of their customers and neighbors,'' said Susan Steinberg, head of the coalition. ''They don't want to consider how fine particulate matter from its smokestacks triggers asthma attacks.''

Giuliani said Con Edison needed to do a better job of explaining to the public that the expansion of the plant will actually reduce harm to the environment while increasing power available to the city.

Turbines generate steam used by 1,900 customers in Manhattan to power their air conditioning and heating units.

In a statement Saturday, Con Edison said it was ''working very closely with the community to address their concerns.''

''We're working hard to be a good neighbor, and the East River plant will be a cleaner plant using state-of-the-art technology that will lower overall emissions,'' the company said.

The city needs more power in part because of the increasing use of technology and an expanding real estate market that has included large apartment and office buildings in Manhattan and a large number of new homes in Westchester County and Staten Island.

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03/31/2001

-- Anonymous, April 01, 2001