Rep. Smucker joins state and local officials to oppose $2.5 billion hydroelectric project

• By Elizabeth Deornellas/LNP | LancasterOnline

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker gathered with state and local officials today to announce opposition to plans to build a $2.5 billion dam and power turbine on the Susquehanna River in Chanceford Township, York County.

“We will do everything we can to stop this project,” the Lancaster County Republican said of the project proposed for less than a mile across the river from the Enola Low Grade Rail Trail in Manor Township.

Smucker spoke at an event that drew nearly 20 state and local elected officials from Lancaster and York counties.

To construct a hydroelectric plant at Cuffs Run, York Energy Storage LLC proposes a 1.8-mile-long dam that would flood 580 acres in Chanceford Township, York County.

“It would uproot families, it would impact preserved farms, and it would damage the natural beauty,” Smucker said at a press conference held at the John Wright restaurant in Wrightsville, York County.

Preliminary assessments estimate the project’s 1,000-acre total footprint would affect 50 properties, three preserved farms, 2 miles of the Mason-Dixon hiking trail in York County, and hundreds of acres of forest.

Smucker emphasized that federal, state, and local officials from Lancaster and York counties are working with environmental groups to oppose the project.

“When we can come together, we should,” Smucker said.

After the press conference, Smucker said next steps include pressuring federal regulators and reaching out to the governor’s office. Elected officials also sent this letter to federal regulators.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted York Energy Storage LLC’s application for a preliminary permit on Feb. 1, starting the clock on a 60-day public comment period before the commission will decide whether to grant the permit.

If granted, the permit would allow York Energy Storage to begin a four-year process of ecological and economic impact studies, estimated to cost nearly $11 million, that must be completed before construction could move forward.

Republican Lancaster County commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino attended the press conference to signal support for their York counterparts. Democratic Lancaster County Commissioner Alice Yoder could not attend due to a scheduling conflict, but county spokesperson Michael Fitzpatrick said she has been involved in discussions and does oppose the Cuffs Run hydroelectric project.

Local officials and environmentalists have objected to the idea that land currently preserved as woodlands or designated for farming in perpetuity could be seized through eminent domain if the Cuffs Run hydroelectric project received final approval.

Both Parsons and D’Agostino said seizing preserved land through eminent domain would set a worrying precedent. D’Agostino said such an action would be against the wishes of local residents.

“They spent money in public dollars to preserve this area, because of how precious it is, how unique it is, and to have that wiped out for a private cause doesn’t even come close to the notion of being able to use eminent domain,” D’Agostino said. “To take that land and essentially destroy it from the use that citizens of this area want. So I’m really concerned about that.”

Bill McMahon, who runs York Energy Storage with his partner Jan Sockel, has been working on a version of the project since its original proposal in the 1990s. Another attempt stalled in 2011. McMahon’s current desired timeline would bring the plant online in 2033.

The permit application lists an inflation estimate of 3% and a total cost estimate of $2.3 billion, but McMahon said he has since revised the inflation estimate to 4% and raised the total estimated cost to $2.5 billion.

McMahon said Smucker’s office did not contact him prior to the press conference and that he drove to the restaurant after being contacted by reporters but arrived too late to speak to any elected officials.

McMahon said Smucker should have been more informed about the benefits the project is intended to bring.

“He didn’t do that,” McMahon said, “so in a sense, I think he wasn’t being as smart as he should be.”

McMahon said his latest count shows 49 properties whose land would need to be acquired to build the project.

“I’m sorry that has to happen, but the fact is the greater benefit is for millions of people,” McMahon said.

McMahon described the project’s potential customers as the 60 million customers of the PJM Interconnection electric grid. At the press conference, Republican state Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill said the primary benefactors of the project’s power generation would be customers in the Maryland-D.C. area.

Jon Hopcraft, chief of staff for Phillips-Hill, said that analysis came from looking at the proposed location of the transmission lines and determining where the bulk of PJM customers are located.

PJM serves customers in 13 states, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. McMahon said he does not agree with the assessment from Phillips-Hill, arguing that the impact of the project would be across the entire PJM grid.

Impact on farmland

Frank Wickes owns two tracts of farmland that would be flooded if the Cuffs Run proposal goes through. Those tracts cover approximately 115 acres and are used to grow soybeans and corn.

Reached by phone, Wickes said that his soil is among the highest quality in the state and that the mature trees that surround the area’s farmland are important for capturing carbon.

He bought the two properties that are inside the Cuffs Run project boundaries in 2008, and Wickes said he’d be willing to take legal action rather than see the farmland lost to eminent domain.

“I would presumably make some money on this,” Wickes said, “but I’m not interested in making money, I want to protect the land.”

Wickes also questioned the project’s bonafides as a source of green energy, saying he’d much rather see $2 billion spent putting solar panels on roofs of York County schools.

“There are a lot of ways to spend $2 billion that could generate more and cheaper electricity if that is the alleged stated goal,” Wickes said, labeling the project a “boondoggle.”

Eric Naylor, director of the York County Agricultural Land Preservation Board, used GIS (a geographic information system is a computer program that analyzes and maps location data) to assess how the project’s boundaries, as outlined on the permit application, would affect farmland.

Naylor estimated that the project boundaries contain 340 acres that are currently used for agricultural production.

His total estimate of the project area is 1,216 acres, which would mean farmland composes 28% of land that would either be flooded or affected by construction. (Naylor’s GIS estimate of the project area is larger than the 1,000-acre area identified in the permit application.)

Naylor estimated that the project boundaries contain 127 acres of preserved farmland – spread across three farms – protected by the York County Agricultural Land Preservation Board and another 68 acres that is part of a wooded parcel preserved by the Farm and Natural Lands Trust of York County.

In addition, Naylor estimated that 623 acres inside the project boundaries are part of Chanceford Township’s Agricultural Security Area, a designation that means municipalities cannot enact ordinances that would unreasonably restrict farming and property cannot be condemned without special permission from a state regulatory board.

Much of that land Naylor surveyed is considered prime farmland, with an estimated 453 acres designated as Class I and II soil, the federal designations for soil considered best suited for agriculture.