With a negative environmental impact declaration in hand, the East Hampton Town Board voted last week to issue $850,000 worth of bonds to bury about 2,000 linear feet of utility lines in Montauk.
The Montauk Gateway Underground Utility Improvement project, a brainchild of the Montauk real estate agent John Keeshan, will see the burying of utility and communication poles on Old Montauk Highway, Second House Road, Dearborn Place, and Montauk Highway where those roads converge at the entrance to the commercial heart of the hamlet.
The project was announced with great fanfare by state and local leaders in 2021 as privately funded efforts had already begun to bury power lines along Old Montauk Highway. Last week’s bonding resolution notes that “a large portion of the existing utility lines have been placed underground by private property owners, at their expense,” and that the town wants to complete the project, not only to strengthen Montauk’s utility services but also to “improve scenic vistas in an area of statewide significance.”
Completing the project will require connecting “several existing private residences” to the new underground utilities in order to remove the remaining utility poles.
PSEG Long Island has noted in its technical materials that while placing power lines underground does provide a “resiliency benefit” when it comes to wind and rain-borne power outages, the buried lines are more susceptible to damage by flooding than lines above ground.
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. championed the undergrounding plan, but in an interview with The Star this week suggested that the town’s “resiliency” rationale might be a bit overstated.
Montauk is prone not only to wind and rain, he agreed, but also to flooding. “With resiliency, it’s six of one or a half-dozen of the other. You could make an argument either way.”
It’s the aesthetic benefit to burying power lines at the gateway to Montauk that is “first and foremost,” Mr. Thiele said. “This rather small section of the overall project is really more about the public viewshed.”
The upcoming burials represent about a tenth of the total undergrounding project on Old Montauk Highway, he said; the rest of it is being funded privately.
The burial of the lines is coming to a head just as Albany is pondering a possible transition of the Long Island Power Authority to a publicly owned utility. Mr. Thiele, who is backing the plan, expects a draft proposal to be released early next month, with a final report expected by the end of April.
