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Communities along proposed route celebrate end of power line plan

Earl Wengert had planned to do a series of improvement projects on his Clayville house.

But that was before news broke in 2006 that New York Regional Interconnect wanted to build a 190-mile long, 1,200-megawatt power line nearby.

"Why put money into a home when they're going to put this line in and nobody's going to want to buy it?" said Wengert, who lives in a Main Street home facing the railroad tracks.

On Friday afternoon, Wengert heard the news he had been waiting for - the power line project was off.

"Thank God," he said. "That's the best news I've heard in years."

The proposed route for the line followed the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway tracks through local communities, including New York Mills, New Hartford, South Utica and Chadwicks.

For years, anti-NYRI signs could be seen dotting lawns from Utica south to Sherburne.

The potential effects of the line were many, including ruining the value of nearby property and disrupting tranquil, attractive stretches of countryside with construction and power lines.

"It was just a no-win situation," Wengert said. "There was nothing positive about it."

But after NYRI announced Friday it was pulling its application for the power line that was in front of the state Public Service Commission, residents and officials in communities along the proposed route declared victory Friday and used celebratory words such as "fantastic" repeatedly.

"When you fight, you can win against the bad things," Utica Mayor David Roefaro said. "The community has come together along with other communities, and we fought and were victorious."

Being free of the battle against NYRI will free up money in the city's budget that was set aside to pay an attorney to fight the NYRI plan, he said. The city has spent thousands of dollars on the attorney, Roefaro said, but he didn't know how much money is in the 2009-10 budget for the services.

Michael Witte, who lives on Lloyds Lane in New Hartford, said he always was confident the line could be prevented.

But Witte - who used to live on Sunnyside Drive in Utica, directly in the path of the proposed route for the line - never imagined it would take this long.

"It would not have been good for me and the value of my house," Witte said. "But I thought they had a good fight and didn't think there was any way it could possibly go through the heart of South Utica."

New Hartford Supervisor Earle Reed said he'd never seen the kind of grassroots opposition locally as that which welled up against the proposed power line.

"It would have been a terrible blight on our horizon and our community," Reed said. "I think it gives a lot of people faith in that kind of grassroots opposition."

Cassville resident Elaine Gaiser of Main Street said she was concerned for some time that the NYRI line would go forward and decrease the value of properties throughout the village.

"We were afraid that they had enough money behind them that they'd be able to push it through," Gaiser said. "That is fantastic."

Herkimer County Legislator John Piscek, R-Herkimer, said he wondered if the state be able to charge NYRI for all the time and effort put into the proposal. Still, he was glad to hear the plan was dead.

"It's fantastic," Piscek said. "It means our rates won't go up."

Contributing: Bryon Ackerman, David Handelman, Observer-Dispatch