MASSENA -- The St. Lawrence County Local Government Task Force says they are taking the next step toward bringing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) into the ongoing re-licensing dispute with the New York Power Authority.

The two sides are trying to negotiate NYPA's relicensing the St. Lawrence-Roosevelt hydrodam in Massena. The license was renewed in 2003. The task force says they aren't getting a square deal, in light of what communities in western New York get out of NYPA from the Niagara power project deal.

The statement comes on the heels of an announcement earlier in the month from Senators Patty Ritchie and Joe Griffo that NYPA would resume talks with the task force, which halted suddenly in late June. Task force chair Joseph Gray said NYPA officials refused to negotiate further after the task force refused their offer, which they felt was insufficient.

In a letter to NYPA director of licensing John Suloway, the task force alleges that NYPA "refuses to engage, as required by law, in a good faith ten-year review," did not make required payments to the task force as per the 2003 license deal and failed to return lands in the power project to the local tax rolls.

They also in the letter accuse NYPA of:

- Failure to make recreational improvements

- Failure to make improvements at the Wilson Hill Wildlife Management Area in Massena

- Failure to complete shoreline restoration work

- Refusal to provide adequate funding to meet shoreline stabilization obligations

- Failure to get the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to install recreational facilities on Galop Island on the St. Lawrence River in the town of Lisbon

A statement from the task force released today includes a side-by-side comparison of the St. Lawrence-Roosevelt and Niagara power project deals.

They say that although Niagara produces just shy of twice as much electricity, the communities get a far better deal.

Gray has previously stated that NYPA pays the city of Buffalo and Erie and Niagara counties $973 million. The project covers 3,162 acres, about a half-mile of shoreline for a total of about 8.6 percent of NYPA's land, according to the statement.

By comparison, St. Lawrence County and the towns of Massena, Louisville and Waddington get $115 million from NYPA, Gray said. The St. Lawrence-Roosevelt project includes 33,696 acres and more than 200 miles of shoreline, encompassing about 83 percent of NYPA's lands in New York state, the statement says.

After discussions "abruptly halted," according to Gray, NYPA fired back by claiming they don't have the legal right to extend the benefits the task force is seeking.

NYPA spokesperson Connie Cullen claims that since the funds to match the western New York deal could "be used for general local government purposes," they can't legally agree to pay it.

"As this review is outside of the FERC licensing process, NYPA does not have the legal authority to make grants or contributions to the local communities," she wrote in a June 27 email.

To view a .pdf document that includes the task force's statement released today, a side-by-side breakdown of some of the benefits afforded per the St. Lawrence-FDR and Niagara deals and the letters to Suloway, click here.