The Adirondack Council

News Release

For more information:
John F. Sheehan
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Released, Wednesday, October 1, 2003

ALBANY, NY -- A news release issued Tuesday, September 30, by the Adirondack Council incorrectly placed blame for the sale of 12,000 federal pollution allowances on the Central Vermont Public Service Corporation.

The sale was made September 25 to a Wall Street securities broker who is free to sell them to Midwest power plants that cause acid rain in New York and New England. Each allowance represents the right to emit one ton of sulfur dioxide from a smokestack.

CVPSC is part-owner of an electric power plant in Yarmouth, Maine, known as the William F. Wyman Station. According to US Environmental Protection Agency records, pollution trader Christopher Shaw is the registered representative of Wyman Station, and is listed as the representative of CVPSC and the other owners of that station. EPA records show that Shaw sold 130,132 federal pollution allowances to the Morgan Stanley brokerage firm in New York City on Sept. 25.

A CVPSC spokesman today informed the Adirondack Council today that Shaw is the manager of the Wyman plant, whose majority owner is FPLE (a subsidiary of Florida Power & Light). CVPSC officials said their company owns less than 2 percent of the Wyman plant, and therefore, does not control trading decisions.

A Washington, DC-based trade newspaper reported the 12,000-allowance sale on September 26, attributing it to CVPSC, and citing EPA as the source of the information. EPA officials were unable to confirm that report today.

CVPSC did, however, confirm that the company could gain between $12,000 and $20,000 for the pollution sales made at the Wyman Station in September, as its share of the profits as part-owner of the plant. (The Adirondack Council's Tuesday press release had estimated the amount of the proceeds at more than $2 million, based on a current market value of $175 per ton.)

The Adirondack Council is dedicated to ensuring the ecological integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park. Founded in 1975, the Council is an 18,000-member, privately-funded, not-for- profit organization with offices in Elizabethtown and Albany, New York.