The property he bought last year sits across the street from the Niagara Falls State Park and a few hundred yards from perhaps the world's most famous source of hydroelectric power, but as of late last month, Frank Parlato relies on another source of electricity to light the former Occidental Office Building.

French fries.

More accurately, the grease used to cook the potato strips fuels a two-generator system that's been supplying the building's electricity since Niagara Mohawk removed the building's power line and meter at Parlato's request on Oct. 21.

Parlato said the utility insisted on charging him for electricity based on when the building had more than 300 occupants, most of them employees of the federal Small Business Administration, which relocated to Buffalo shortly after he purchased the building's mortgage in late 2004. He said the company was charging him a basic monthly rate of $7,000, plus usage.

"I told them I didn't intend to pay their exorbitant rates, or their usurious interest rates," Parlato said of his bill, which remains in dispute. "Someone's got to stand up to them."

More than two months after Parlato said he first told NiMo to cut him off, the generator system went into operation.

Some diesel fuel is needed to get the generator started, he said, but clear oil from a deep fryer, or even a bottle of Crisco, keeps it running thereafter. He said he'll accept waste grease from local restaurant owners, who normally have to pay up to $50 to dispose of a 55-gallon drum of old oil, and will even pick up the stuff.

"When all is said and done, we'll be powering this building for practically nothing," Parlato said, adding that he's looking into ways to use exhaust from the generators as a heat source.

Since taking over the building, Parlato has shown a knack for thrift -- the hole next to the building that was dug for the AquaFalls project is nearly half full, mostly with fill generated and donated by contractors working on nearby projects.

There's also a principle at stake.

"Niagara Falls has two great assets -- the first tourist attraction in North America and hydroelectric power," Parlato said. "Albany has taken over those two great assets and cut us off from them."

He questioned the wisdom of the New York Power Authority's relicensing agreement, which allows the government-run agency to suck $500 million or more in profits -- most of which sustain an incredibly bloated bureaucracy -- out of the area each year for half a century while offering a relative pittance to the affected communities.