The Price of Private Equity’s New York Power Plant Grab
After a private equity firm purchased an upstate power plant, thousands of gallons of oil spilled into Lake Ontario. It’s part of a troubling pattern.
Leanna First-Arai · September 13, 2022

The Oswego Harbor power plant, recently acquired by a private equity firm, spilled over 45,000 gallons of oil into Lake Ontario. | Scott Thomas Photography
This article was published in partnership with The Nation.

The Oswego power plant, seen from the SUNY Oswego campus.
| Leanna First-Arai
Why would you invest in something that you’re not going to be allowed to use?
—Anthony Rogers-Wright, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
Leanna First-Arai is a freelance journalist who covers environmental and climate justice. Her work has appeared in Undark, Sierra Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Outside Magazine, on New England Public Radio and elsewhere.
Also filed in
New York State
The policy and its sudden reversal will be among Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci’s last acts.
A new letter from the federal government is energizing a push to expand health insurance for undocumented New Yorkers, but time is running out.
New York prisons may have effectively banned journalism behind bars.
Also filed in
Climate and Environment
Biofuels, hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear: These are some of the technologies that will be on the table as New York weighs how to clean up its grid over the next 17 years.
National Fuel customers paid for a website directing New Yorkers to oppose electrification mandates, documents show.
New York law requires utilities to build out gas infrastructure at customers’ expense. The Senate wants to close the spigot.