BARKER – Residents and officials are cautiously optimistic as the first steps are taken to develop a proposed “short sea” shipping corridor in the city of Somerset.
The Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA) previously said it has reached an agreement with the owner of the decommissioned Somerset Generation Station to build a new Lake Ontario shipping corridor and port on the 1,800-acre site.
Members of Somerset City Council say they would generally welcome the proposed port, but there is still a lot of preparatory work to be done.
“Everyone in the community knows as many things as we do,” said Town Supervisor Jeff Dewart. “I haven’t spoken to (the organizers) since they first came to town in April. They said there are a number of possibilities for what could be happening down there.
A multimodal shipping terminal would be created at the former site of New York’s last coal-fired power plant on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. The factory was decommissioned in 2020.
HOPA said the lake shipping corridor would “create supply chain capacity and reduce emissions associated with binational freight movements.”
Dewart indicated that residents he has spoken with so far do not appear to be opposed to the project and believe it could bring benefits to the city. The main concern he hears from residents is increased tractor traffic to the port.
“If it does what they hope, which is 100 full-time jobs, it could bring more people here for the city and kids for the school…,” Dewart said. ‘I’ve spoken to a few people who think it’s a great idea. They’re not happy with all the trucks, but they love it because it brings people here and maybe some wives or husbands who don’t work there will decide to start a business here.
City Councilman Jon Hotaling said that while he hopes the project becomes a reality, he will take a wait-and-see approach for now.
“When I first heard about it, I said, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it and I’ll never experience it again,’” Hotaling said.
Longtime Somerset resident Jim Hoffman said he’s also taking a wait-and-see approach and has some concerns about the project’s potential impact on the city.
“It’s going to pose a lot of environmental problems because there’s no natural harbor there,” Hoffman noted. “So there’s going to be a lot of concern about what they’re doing to our lake and our shores. And then I think everyone realizes this: if you bring a lot of traffic into here, our roads can’t handle it.”
A traffic study into the port’s potential impact on surrounding communities will be part of the development process, HOPA agents and landowner Beowulf previously said.
The partners say the opening of the port would create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in Niagara County and the Greater Buffalo area, including stevedores, warehouse workers, freight forwarders, dock workers, crane operators, shipping agents, dredging contractors, ship pilots, truck drivers and shipyard workers, among others.
Norm Jansen, chairman of the city planning board, said he is “neutral” on the proposal at this time, but he recognizes the potential benefits it could have.
“A lot of people will be hired there. I am all for that,” says Jansen.
The site, which is undergoing redevelopment, is approximately 60 kilometers directly southwest of the Port of Oshawa. It is currently the site of the Lake Mariner Data facility, a high-tech campus aimed at supporting several high-energy industries, including bitcoin mining, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Also on the expansive site, Somerset Solar LLC, a subsidiary of AES Clean Energy Development LLC, plans to build a 125-megawatt solar array. The company has received a draft permit from the state Renewable Site Agency.
