LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the
completion and operation of the St. Lawrence-FDR Power Project

WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to commend the efforts
of those organizations and individuals that seek to bring recognition to
historical places within the State of New York, and in doing so, help to
ensure that the complete history of our State and Nation is preserved
and shared with present generations of citizens; and
WHEREAS, Attendant to such concern, and in full accord with its long-
standing traditions, it is the sense of this Legislative Body to commem-
orate the 50th Anniversary of the completion and operation of the St.
Lawrence-FDR Power Project; and
WHEREAS, In addition, this special occasion is to also recognize the
51st Anniversary of commencement of the Niagara Power Project, and the
40th Anniversary of commencement of the Blenheim-Gilboa Power Project;
and
WHEREAS, The New York Power Authority's history began with hydropower,
and its first generating facility is the St. Lawrence-Franklin D.
Roosevelt Power Project, located on New York's border with Canada; the
Power Authority began producing hydroelectricity there in 1958, the
result of a cooperative effort between the United States and Canada; and
WHEREAS, Adjacent to the Power Authority's project is Ontario Power
Generation's Robert H. Saunders Generating Station, which shares with
the Power Authority a power dam which stretches across the St. Lawrence
River at a length of 10 football fields; and
WHEREAS, Even as work on the St. Lawrence River proceeded, the Power
Authority prepared for an even more complex project, to be located on
the lower Niagara River, about five miles downstream from Niagara Falls;
private companies had been generating electricity along the Niagara
since 1881, but impetus for a new project came when a 1950 treaty with
Canada made more of the river's water available for power production
while assuring that the beauty of Niagara Falls would be preserved; and
WHEREAS, As at St. Lawrence, a variety of interests vied for the
rights to large-scale hydroelectric development in the early 1950s; on
June 7, 1956, the dispute came to a sudden and dramatic end when a rock-
slide destroyed the area's largest privately owned hydroelectric plant,
severely limiting the availability of low-cost power in the region; the
time for debate was over; with tens of thousands of industrial jobs
endangered, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act in 1957,
paving the way for the Power Authority to obtain a license and begin
construction by March of 1958; and
WHEREAS, The 2,400,000-kw Niagara Power Project was the largest hydro-
power complex in the Western World when it began operating in January of
1961, less than three years after construction began; President John F.
Kennedy, who joined three former presidents, including Dwight D. Eisen-
hower, Harry S. Truman and Herbert Hoover, in sending congratulations,
called the Niagara project "an outstanding engineering achievement" and
an "example to the world of North American efficiency and determi-
nation"; and
WHEREAS, In 1967, a blue-ribbon panel was organized to study the
state's power needs and the most economical ways of meeting them; the
committee recommended, among other things, that the Power Authority be
permitted to build nuclear and pumped storage hydroelectric plants; a
bipartisan bill providing such authorization passed both houses of the
Legislature in early 1968, and Governor Rockefeller, in signing the
measure, mentioned that it created "a unique partnership between govern-

ment and private industry in meeting the future power needs of the
state"; and
WHEREAS, In 1969, construction began on the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped
Storage Power Project (1,040,000 kw), in the Catskill Mountains, and the
James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant (820,000 kw), named after the
Power Authority's chairman at the time and located on the shores of Lake
Ontario, near Oswego; the Blenheim-Gilboa project soon began operation;
and
WHEREAS, This Legislative Body is pleased to have this opportunity to
express its highest admiration for the New York Power Authority, and for
all of the individuals who have worked to bring proper attention to a
place and time which merits recognition in the grand panorama of the
history of our State and Nation; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberation to
commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the completion and operation of the
St. Lawrence-FDR Power Project; and be it further
RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be tran-
smitted to the New York Power Authority.