| Issue #35, November 24, 2006 |
Broadwater Gains Some Yardage
The FERC Says Environmental Impact Will Be Minor, North Forkers Grumble
By David Lion Rattiner
Broadwater just jumped a pretty big hurdle last week.
Just about every politician and citizen on the North Fork has outright opposed the Broadwater project, which is a giant liquid natural gas barge that will be placed into the middle of Long Island Sound. The proposed project is going to bring in gas from China from a giant freighter, which will come into the Sound, link up with another giant freighter in the Sound, give the gas to that freighter and then put the gas into a pipe which will shoot underwater, through the Sound, into New York City. Then you will go home, turn on the lights and bingo, gas is getting burned.
The reason people don’t like it so much is because nobody likes the commercialization of the Sound. They also don’t like to see a giant oil tanker barreling through while they are at the beach, and they also don’t like worrying that it will one day accidentally blow up. With that being said, Broadwater has been going through a lot, and by a lot I mean a lot, of red tape to get approval to make the project happen. Millions of dollars are at stake.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is one of the governing bodies that gives approval for the project. They conducted a study and concluded that a liquefied natural gas platform as big as the Queen Mary 2 right smack in the middle of the Sound along with other freighters buzzing back and forth is only going to cause minor environmental effects. They will supply about one billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, which will go to New York City, Long Island and Connecticut. That’s a lot of gas, which is good, but it’s at the cost of the Long Island Sound, which is bad.
Grumble, grumble goes the North Fork.
As far as wetlands, wildlife, fisheries, shellfish and all of the other good stuff, according to the report, will not be affected in comparison to alternatives to the project. Alternatives such as, not doing the project? Obviously not.
The friendly report by the FERC really made the anti-Broadwater Coalition, an organization designed to stop this project, bananas, or in other words, angry. “It’s almost as if Broadwater wrote the document for FERC. It is truly disheartening when public concerns are rationalized away in the name of multinational energy corporations,” Adrienne Espositio, the leader of the organization, reportedly said.
And so, Broadwater may actually happen. And what does that mean?
Well, we all remember what happened to the nuclear power plant in Wading River. This kind of thing makes North Forkers upset, and in general they don’t quit, so we’ll just wait and see.
The battle is also not over for North Forkers. There is one governing body called the New York State Department of State that can throw up the red tape. That’s a big call for the agency and everyone is anxiously awaiting to hear what they have to say about the project. Also, the Coast Guard found some safety problems that Broadwater needs to address, like adding marine firefighting capabilities (which actually sounds kind of cool, but also scary).
It will be interesting to see what happens with this. Broadwater is making the bet that they can get the structure up and running by 2010.
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