Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt took a field trip on Sept. 28, not to Vineyard Field behind the South Fork Natural History Museum, but to the Long Island Power Authority’s quarterly board of trustees meeting held at the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center.
There, Dai Dayton, president of group, handed the board a petition with over 3,000 signatures in opposition to a plan to drill through the greenbelt to lay a transmission line between Sag Harbor and East Hampton.
In June, PSEG, which operates the electrical grid owned by LIPA, held a public hearing in Wainscott to present its plan. Over 50 members of the community, including Suffolk Legislator Bridget Fleming and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., spoke out against the plan. It found no support.
Since then, things have been quiet.
“We’re not going away because they’re not talking about it,” said Ms. Dayton, over the phone. “We are planning on keeping it out there.”
Many made the two-hour trip to speak at the meeting in support of Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, which celebrates 25 years of advocacy for the greenbelt this weekend. A handful more made comments over Zoom.
Ms. Dayton struck a gentle tone, “I’m here to ask you for your help,” she told the board members. She explained how over the last 50 years a combination of Southampton Town, Suffolk County, and Nature Conservancy money — millions of dollars — had been spent to preserve the land. She spoke about the endangered and Department of Environmental Conservation-protected tiger salamanders, whose “breeding ponds are located directly in the path of the drill.”
She brought up the “old Sag Harbor dump site” that “has never been remediated” and wondered how it and the possible leakage of slurry from the drilling could affect the coastal plains ponds and the aquifer from which the East End draws its drinking water.
“Why take this unnecessary risk when there is an alternative underground route, south along Bridge-Sag Turnpike, and East along Route 27?” she asked.
The greenbelt route would cost LIPA about $40 million; the alternative route would cost $84 million. LIPA’s annual operating budget for 2022 was nearly $4 billion. So, the additional $40 million to avoid the greenbelt represents only 1 percent of the budget.
“They’ve only chosen to go through the greenbelt because it’s cheaper for them,” said Ms. Dayton over the phone. “In the process, they’d destroy something you can’t put a price on. They’re not making any more coastal plains. This is it.”
Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said the only reason this route seems cheaper is because LIPA “has assigned no value to the environmental asset.”
“This is a globally rare ecosystem that contains the most diverse quantity
of endangered species throughout New York State. It’s been undisturbed since the glaciers deposited it there. Let’s leave it there. That’s why it’s a preserve.”
She said drilling through the greenbelt would set an awful precedent. “We cannot use preserves for energy infrastructure. We must learn how to create what we need and also preserve what we need.”
“Do it for the children and future stewards of the planet,” urged Frank Quevedo, the executive director of the South Fork Natural History Museum, which sits adjacent to the greenbelt. The preserve, “is doing exactly what a preserve is supposed to do” he said, introducing families and children to nature.
Steve Storch warned LIPA of a “public relations nightmare” and said it “would be a complex and impossible restoration,” if the utility chose to go through the greenbelt. Shawn Sachs echoed Mr. Storch’s more aggressive style, saying, “We have a coalition of the people, and we have lawyers. We will fight this. We’re not going to make this easy.”
“The East End has a growing need for electricity, and we have to figure out a way to provide it reliably,” said Tom Falcone, the C.E.O. of LIPA. “We’re all environmentalists,” he said, flatly.
But Mark Fischl, the vice chairman of LIPA’s board, seemed genuinely affected, and promised to come visit the greenbelt. “I do think it’s important that we attribute value to these things. Whoever said that hit the nail on the head.”
“There’s a big push on ‘unpreserving’ things,” said Ms. Dayton, over the phone. “There’s not enough protection and that needs to be addressed or we’re going to lose everything we thought we had.”
