Con Ed Threatens Harvard Forest

The Federal Power Commission is now reconsidering Consolidated Edison Company's eight-year-old request to take over 240 acres of a Harvard experimental forest in New York State for a hydro-electric project-and local conservation groups fear the plan is closer than ever to approval.

On December 24, 1969, after public hearings, an FPC examiner ruled in favor of Con Ed. The full commission took up the matter last month, and will issue a decision in the fall.

New York conservation groups have been bitterly fighting the Con Ed plan since 1962, turning it into an ecological cause celebre known as the "Storm King Mountain controversy." In 1965, they temporarily halted the project through court fights, but the new Con Ed challenge is conceded a far greater chance of success.

Black Rock

The land is part of a 3700-acre mountain area near West Point called the Harvard Black Rock Forest. Foresters have used the area for experiments, and a nearby town taps several reservoirs on the property for its water supply.

If the Federal Power Commission and the courts do grant Con Ed condemnation rights next fall, the power company will build five dikes on the Harvard land and pump water from a Hudson River reservoir into a valley in the forest.

During the day, when the demand for electricity in New York City is high, the stored water would be allowed to rush through a 40-foot-high tunnel carved through Storm King Mountain. At the base of Storm King, this water will then drive a series of turbine generators.

Con Edison claims the plant is needed to avoid a future black out.

But conservation organizations have objected that the project would not only flood part of the Black Rock Forest, but would also disturb the local ecology.

The Hudson River water in the S-billion gallon reservoir is not only polluted but brackish, and there is a chance that seepage from the reservoir would spread salts through the soil in other areas of the forest. According to the conservationists' scenario, the vegetation in the area would die or be replaced by other salt-tolerant species.

Conservationists also claim that when the reservoir's polluted waters are drained everyday, the exposed bottom sludge would create a stench strong enough to drive away the hikers and hunters who normally roam the Black Rock Forest.

Flush Toilet

"It's a flush toilet," said James R. Hamilton of the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, Con Ed's chief opponent.

Recreational use of the reservoir would be out of the question. "If you were out boating when they pulled the plug. it would be a matter of being flushed down." Hamilton said.

Once granted condemnation rights, Con Ed would eventually expand the 8-billion gallon reservoir to cover an extra 160 acres of Harvard land, Hamilton estimated.

Some fisheries experts have also suggested that large numbers of young shad and striped bass would be sucked into the intake pipes and killed.

Improving Natural Beauty

For its part, Con Ed claims to be improving the area's natural beauty. The old buildings along the water front below Storm King are dilapidated, and the company plans to demolish them and fill in a mile of river shallows for a 57-acre park.

Storm King Mountain is the northern end of a magnificent fjord-like valley in the Hudson Highlands. After strong opposition to the project arose, Con Ed agreed to put the power plant as well as the nearby transmission lines underground.

But Con Ed had rejected the chief alternative to the Storm King project-using gas turbines to cope with peak electrical demand.

The Storm King battle has produced a landmark in conservation law: In 1965 a federal court allowed a conservation organization to intervene on behalf of the public for the firsttime. The court also ordered the Federal Power Commission to reconsider the case, giving greater weight to environmental factors.

In all this hassle, Harvard has remained surprisingly aloof despite the threat of losing its own land. In 1964 President Pusey wrote a letter to the New York Times stating that Harvard wishes "to ally ourselves with the Times and the individuals and organizations who are protesting the plans of Consolidated Edison."

But Harvard was not represented at either the FPC or court hearings, and none of the $500,000 that conservationists have spent in opposing Con Ed was contributed by Harvard.

Conservationists have not approached Harvard asking for financial support. Yet the chief explanation for Harvard's inaction seems to be a fear of getting mired in New York State polities. (The land is formally run by a legal front organization called the Harvard Black Rock Forest Corporation, to avoid such entanglements.)

Local observers also fear that Harvard would like to sell the land for a tidy sum that could be used handily in Cambridge. Condemnation would allow Harvard to sell out without jeopardizing its rights to the land under the will of Ernest G Stillinan who donated the land in 1949.

To date, Harvard and Con Ed have not discussed the sale and last week President Pusey reiterated his opposition to the Con Ed project.

Since the FPC examiner has already approved Con Ed's plan, though conservationists expect the FPC commissioners to grant the final license next Fall unless some powerful institution-hopefully Harvard steps into the battle.

The local Storm King ecology groups have been fighting the Con Ed project since it was announced in September 1962. Both their funds and congressional influence have been spread thin by the eight year battle.

No matter which way the FPC decides the case another court fight seems inevitable.

"But the climate has changed in the country." Hamilton said, noting the upsurge in environmental concern. "We will be fighting, against a more favorable backdrop."