Judge Voids Town OK for Power Plant
By Mark Harrington, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
May 25–A State Supreme Court judge in Riverhead has nullified an environmental approval for the Caithness Long Island power plant in Yaphank, saying the Brookhaven Town board’s re-vote on the matter failed to follow proper procedures.
Justice Jeffrey Arlen Spinner ordered the “arbitrary and capricious” approvals granted by the Brookhaven board be sent back to the town for “proper action.”
The decision for now draws a large question mark around the planned 350-megawatt plant commissioned by the Long Island Power Authority. Developers have already broken ground for Caithness, planned for an industrial area a few miles north of the Brookhaven Town landfill.
The decision nullifies a critical environmental approval and permit given by the town on July 26, after the Brookhaven board initially rejected it June 6. Spinner in his May 22 decision said the town’s failure to discuss the proposal before the re-vote “fails to meet the standard of literal compliance with both the letter and spirit of SEQRA,” New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act.
Michael Pitcher, a spokesman for Brookhaven, said the town planned to file a notice of appeal immediately. He called the ruling a “procedural matter” that “will be corrected at an upcoming town board meeting.”
Plaintiffs argued the only factor that changed between the town’s initial rejection of the environmental review and the second vote approving it was the addition of millions of dollars of incentive payments from LIPA.
“The Supreme Court has written a likely obituary for the Caithness power plant today, concluding that the environmental approvals for the project were illegal and flawed,” said Robert Calica, an attorney for an owner of a nearby apartment complex, civic groups and residents.
The decision was a victory of sorts for two Brookhaven town board members who voted against Caithness, in part on procedural grounds.
One of them, Carol Bissonette, last year went so far as to provide an affidavit in the lawsuit charging that the board violated its own rules in approving the project on the re-vote. Bissonette, who had alleged that the process for approving Caithness had “transcended into bribery” because of nearly $200 million in incentives to schools, villages and community groups, this month did not win her party’s endorsement to reclaim her seat in upcoming elections.
“I am thrilled,” Bissonette said yesterday of the judge’s ruling. She reiterated her prior claim that the environmental impact statement for the plant “was full of fraud, flaws and omissions,” and added, “I would vote exactly the same way I did over and over again because it was the right vote to cast.”
For LIPA, the ruling could delay an important project it had hoped to have in operation by the summer of 2009.
“Obviously, this decision is a setback for the Caithness project,” LIPA chief executive Richard Kessel said in a statement. “I am confident, however, that legal appeals will be successful.”
Caithness officials were reviewing the ruling yesterday and did not provide a comment.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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