Broadwater Out of Gas on LI?: Most Residents at Public Forum About Floating Terminal Reject Plan; Supporters Say It Will Bring Jobs
By Tom Incantalupo, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Jan. 11–Long Islanders sounded off last night, most of them against a proposal for a 1,200-foot, floating, liquid, natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound north of Suffolk County.
A crowd of about 1,000, many waving signs and one in a chicken suit, nearly filled an auditorium at a Smithtown school for the first of two public information meetings being held in the county — the other is in Shoreham tonight — by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and by state officials who also must rule on the proposal by Broadwater Energy Inc. of Houston.
Led by federal, state and local officials, speaker after speaker denounced the proposal at the occasionally raucous session, as an unacceptable environmental and security risk.
“I loathe the prospect of a private take-over of a public national resource,” said Suffolk Legis. Jon Cooper (D-Lloyd Harbor).
Dozens of unionized carpenters in orange caps came to support the project for its potential to create jobs.
“We look at the Broadwater project as having some stimulus for the economy of Long Island,” said John M. Kennedy, president of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk County.
J. Mark Robinson, the energy commission’s director of energy projects, conceded at a briefing earlier for reporters that most of those voicing opinions on both sides of the Sound have opposed the terminal. “It’s certainly been on the side of, ‘Let’s not have it here,’” he said.
The terminal would be midway between Wading River and the Connecticut shoreline, rising more than 80 feet from the surface of the Sound. It would regassify super-cold liquefied gas delivered by tankers, and then send it to Long Island and Connecticut via pipeline.
The commission’s staff said in a preliminary environmental impact report in November that it believes the facility can be operated safely and with minimal environmental impact.
Opponents maintain the terminal is a potential terrorist target and environmental disaster.
Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, one of dozens of groups in a coalition formed to block the project, addressed officials last night.
“People don’t just place a high value on Long Island Sound,” she said. “They place the highest value on it. We want more energy. . . . but we want an energy plan that doesn’t destroy what we love.”
Robinson insisted that the commission won’t ignore local opposition. He said a final environmental impact statement is likely in the spring, followed several months later by a ruling by the five-member commission.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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