Queens deserves better than a new peaker plant

State Sen. Jessica Ramos has urged the state to block NRG from continuing to burn fossil fuels at a site in Astoria.Photo courtesy of Ramos

By Jessica Ramos, Jose Miranda, Jr. and Justin Wood

Like many New Yorkers, we listened and watched in horror last month as the Texas energy system failed, leaving millions without heat, water, light, food and medical equipment. We watched as Fox News commentators and the Texas governor falsely blamed frozen windmills for the disaster, deflecting attention from the key links between climate change and extreme winter storms and the long history of deregulation and skimping on investments that left the fossil fuel-heavy Texas grid so vulnerable. 

For months before this disaster, residents in Western Queens and the South Bronx have been raising the alarm about NRG, a huge Texas-based corporation planning to build a new natural gas-burning power plant in Astoria.

Our city already has dozens of these gas and oil-burning power plants sited near low-income communities and communities of color. For decades communities like Western Queens have suffered from the worst air quality and the highest rates of respiratory disease linked to pollution, which raised the risk for serious disease and death when COVID-19 hit.

Over the summer, hundreds of concerned residents, local elected officials, scientists, and grassroots organizations submitted comments and questions about the negative environmental, health, and economic consequences of building a new gas-burning plant near our most heavily polluted communities. We asked NRG to instead explore viable and affordable alternatives like using battery technology to store the energy produced by local solar installations and offshore wind farms. Even then, NRG's plan to burn natural gas in our community didn't budge. 

To add insult to injury, NRG's attempt at a "public participation meeting" reached only a tiny slice of the local community — many community members and organizations in Queens never received an invitation or even a basic notice, and those who attended this voice-only meeting were put on hold, cut off by moderators, and given canned responses from the corporation's faceless PR people. 

We can't afford to keep burning gas and oil and hoping for a better result. Places like Texas are a warning of how companies like NRG will behave if given the opportunity: they may occasionally talk a "green game," but nationwide only a paltry 2 percent of their massive power portfolio is actually renewable — and many of these fossil fuel plants failed during the devastating Texas Freeze.

NRG has had every opportunity to listen, collaborate, adjust, and innovate. If New York State wants to remain a national leader in environmental policy, we need to change the law to make sure our communities have a voice in who can come into our neighborhoods. This is why the Senate has unanimously passed S3211A, which would require meaningful community input and transparency from companies trying to site new energy projects in Queens and across the state, along with S4378A, which would set a timeline for companies to replace their fossil fuel peaker plants with feasible renewable energy and storage solutions.

Queens deserves better than another pollution-belching peaker plant. Climate change and related public health crises are causing misery in our communities right here and now. We will continue to stand with our communities and colleagues to ensure our demands for environmental justice are heard.

State Sen. Jessica Ramos represents the 13th District including Northwestern and Central Queens. Jose Miranda, Jr. is the director of economic justice at Chhaya Community Development Corporation. Justin Wood is the director of policy at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest