MASSENA — Massena’s village and town boards have thrown their support behind a proposal to site a nuclear facility in Massena.
Mayor Gregory M. Paquin said he and Deputy Mayor Chad L. Simpson had attended a nuclear energy forum sponsored by Assemblyman Scott A. Gray , R-Watertown, earlier this month in Alexandria Bay.
“I’m not going to lie. When I went up there, I had some reservations. My biggest thought was I was looking at how much water these facilities use. It’s like 13 million gallons a day. I’m like, we can’t do that. There would be no way,” he said.
But, Paquin said, that was no longer the case.
“These new advanced, zero-emission, they don’t necessarily use water to cool them. One guy that was there, he was from the United States Navy and he was part of their nuclear program. He talked about if we wanted to, we could put a nuclear power plant in the middle of Saudi Arabia and not have to use water. So, there’s other methods. That was the one thing that I was like, all right, that kind of quelled my biggest fear because I’m sure there were a lot of sportsmen and stuff who were thinking, ‘Hell no, we can’t do that up here,’” he said.
He said, as the presentation was taking place, he was on his phone searching the topic online so he could better understand it.
“I always had the vision of a nuclear power plant that’s Nine Mile down in Oswego. They make huge cooling towers. That’s not what this would be. It basically would be an office building,” Paquin said.
He said it was up to them to educate the public about the nuclear power plants of today.
“If we’re going to continue to push for this and so forth, it’s going to be imperative on us to educate the public well. I’m sure some of the speakers that were there would most definitely come talk to us about that as we go through the process because I know everyone has the vision of Fukushima exploding and stuff like that. One of things he said is no plan has ever failed because of the nuclear power. It’s always failed because of human error and, because of those human errors, they’ve improved training time and time again,” he said. “It’s not the water guzzling nuclear power plants that you see down at Nine Mile and other places. This is a modern, modern facility with zero emissions.”
Paquin said he had talked with a representative of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe.
“He’s very confident that there will be great support for that as well,” he said.
Trustees passed a resolution “supporting the development and construction of a zero-emission advanced nuclear power plant in Massena.”
“The Village and Town of Massena stand at the forefront of New York State’s energy future, committed to advancing sustainable solutions that address climate change, economic revitalization, and energy security and reliability. Massena boasts a strong legacy of industry, innovation, workforce resilience, and ample talented organized labor associations, as well as abundant land to accommodate a nuclear power plant,” the resolution reads, noting that because Massena is home to the New York Power Authority’s St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project, “Massena an ideal host for clean energy projects of strategic importance to the state.”
The Massena Town Council approved a similar resolution during their meeting the following night. Town Supervisor Susan J. Bellor said she had a copy of the slides that were used during the Alexandria Bay presentation to share with anyone who was interested.
“Very, very impressive,” she said.