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PSEG May Bury Lines in East Hampton Village

McGuirk Street, East Hampton Village
McGuirk Street, East Hampton Village
By
Joanne Pilgrim

New high-voltage electric transmission lines that run through narrow residential streets of East Hampton Village could be removed and instead installed underground, according to a recent proposal by PSEG Long Island, the utility company that installed them.

According to New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who is among local elected officials that met recently with PSEG executives, the company has offered to bury an approximately 1.5-mile section of the line, at a total cost that has been estimated at between $5 million and $10 million, and to pay for half of the cost.

If the proposal is agreed to, East Hampton Village would pay the rest and recoup the cost by charging village ratepayers through a tax or a utility bill surcharge. The super-size poles installed for the high-voltage wires would either be replaced with standard-size poles, or topped off and made shorter.

Talks between the parties are continuing and no definite deal has been reached, said Mr. Thiele. The East Hampton Village administrator, Becky Molinaro, said Friday that "the village will not confirm or deny" the PSEG proposal, nor comment on the talks. A comment from PSEG officials was not immediately available.

The line, designed to increase system resiliency, is part of a six-mile extension between substations in the village and on Old Stone Highway in Amagansett that has been the subject of consternation and dispute. Village residents and others along the route and throughout the town have protested the installation of the lines and the large roadside poles they hang on, citing health and safety concerns over their proximity to houses as well as aesthetic concerns.

One citizens' group has sued PSEG, citing those concerns as well as environmental concerns based on the use of a toxic preservative on the poles, and a loss of property values.

Whether the lines throughout the rest of the town, which run along Accabonac Highway and Town Lane to Old Stone Highway and the eastern substation, could also be buried, is still in question. "They made it clear that this is their proposal; this isn't part of a larger negotiation," the assemblyman said of the PSEG proposal for East Hampton Village.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Friday that "constructive discussion" is continuing among the officials and the utility, though there are "varying degrees of progress in reaching decisions" regarding work in the village and in the town.

Because the talks are "delicate," he said he is "not at liberty to discuss" the dialogue in more detail. "We're going to have to see what we can achieve, with PSEG, and the costs, and how the costs would be paid," he said.

However, the supervisor said that he is "reluctant to require every ratepayer throughout the town to pay, on the utility bill, for the cost of burying the portion [of the transmission line] in the town."

"We had a duty to bring [the proposal on the table] back to all of the interested stakeholders, which has now been done," said Mr. Thiele.

While the line installation is complete, a legal dispute between PSEG and East Hampton Town, which issued a stop-work order on the utility's Amagansett substation, the endpoint of the high-voltage line extension, has kept the service off line.

Assemblyman Thiele said Friday that he and others have kept pressure on PSEG Long Island over the high-voltage line in East Hampton, others in other Long Island communities, and other issues, such as rates and a lack of state authority and oversight of the utility.

"The leverage we have is public opinion," he said. "That has caused them to put a proposal on the table."

Officials are expected to make decisions within the coming weeks.

 

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