Proposed Newsprint Mill Looks for Permit

Efforts by Besicorp-Empire Development Company LLC to build an electric generating plant and newsprint recycling facility on a contaminated industrial site in Rensselaer, N.Y., is scheduled to have a public hearing this week as part of its Article X application. After the public hearing, the company will have a meeting with the Public Service Commission examiners to review the permit process and outline issues that will be part of upcoming litigation.

Under plans submitted by the company, the 505-megawatt facility would be constructed for about $680 million on a 79.9-acre site formally used by BASF until about a year ago.

While the project has drawn critics in the Capital District, where the proposal would have the facility along the Hudson River separating the city of Rensselaer from Albany, opposition leaders have taken a low-key approach compared to the Ulster County campaigns that drew hundreds of people to protest the plant.

Coalition Against Riverfront Pollution spokeswoman Susan Beers said there were about 60 people at a May meeting where problems with the proposal were outlined.

"We actually formed with the dual purpose to clean up of the BASF property and (to oppose) the Besicorp project that would be going in right on top of a contaminated site," she said.

"The first problem we had was that while everyone else seems to think that replacing an existing 'brownfield' is a good idea, this is still a residential neighborhood ... and right in that particular area it's historic," Beers said. "They seem to think that once an area is contaminated then (they can) keep doing it. We felt that BASF leaving would give us an opportunity to clean up that area and use it for something else that is a nonpolluting industry."

In material presented to the public, opposition members describe the project as the "cover-up on the Hudson" and is "an Enron in the making." Beers added there are concerns over ownership issues with Besicorp because of lawsuits and the two felony convictions of company founder Michael Zinn, who was sentenced to six months in prison and two years of supervised release after pleading guilty to two felony counts for a 1994 violation of election laws.

BASF Wyantotte, of Mount Olive, N.J., was estimated by city officials two years ago to pay about $600,000 in property taxes on an assessment of $9.17 million.

Information from the Troy Record newspaper reports city officials have supported allowing the Rensselaer County Industrial Development Authority to negotiate a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes plan for the facility.

"I am happy to say that we are one step closer to bringing in a company that will create jobs, revive our local economy and clean up a former industrial site in an environmentally friendly way," said Rensselaer Mayor Mark Pratt in March.

State approval to move forward with hearings was granted in May after Besicorp filed a revised application; one they filed in February was determined to be incomplete.

In a June 27 decision from state commission Examiner Jaclyn Brilling, the city was given a requested $43,700 for upcoming costs while the county Environmental Management Council was awarded $40,000. Other funding to come from an a fund established in the application process included $12,000 to the Rensselaer County Greens; $40,000 to the Sierra Club; and $16,000 to the Fort Crailo Neighborhood Association. Daily Freeman.com