The cost to win, $2.5 million spent to fight NYRI

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WKTV News

Story Created: Apr 7, 2009 at 9:39 PM EST

Story Updated: Apr 7, 2009 at 10:11 PM EST

(WKTV) - It was an eight county, five citizen group effort. They all shared the money they raised with the Citizens Against Regional Interconnect, or the CARI group. That group acted as the umbrella organization to fight the NYRI project.
    
"Through yesterday (Monday) we had over $2.45 million of expenses." said Steve Dimeo, Chairman of the CARI group.
    
However Dimeo says, all the bills that need to be paid have yet to come in.  He says when it is all said and done about $2.75 million will be spent.  "It is a lot, but then again it is a three year process," Dimeo said.  "It is money we wish we did not have to spend. It wasn't easy going back to the counties and asking for more money."
    
Dimeo says an initial $1million was granted, to CARI, by the state senate.  He says above that, each of the eight counties committed $205,000 each  for the fight.
    
Dimeo says most of the money was spent on lawyers, and a large chunk of it came in 2007 when NYRI filed their application. He says the company had one year to prove a power line was needed in New York State.  But Dimeo says it was CARI's lawyers who were a part of those hearings, and made the difference.  "The arguments that CARI was making and the arguments of others were having a lot more weight than anything NYRI was doing," Dimeo said.  "It was pretty apparent how shallow the application was, and how deficient it was."

Dimeo expects future appeals and future hearings on the NYRI project. Because of that he is not telling any citizens group to stop raising funds, since more may be needed in the future. 
    
Dimeo says the last estimate he heard was that NYRI spent $20 million up to this point.

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