Do We Want to Turn the Sound into an Industrial Park?

I missed this op-ed on the Broadwater proposal that Leah Lopez wrote for yesterday’s New Haven Register. She makes all the right points:

Such a facility would set a dangerous precedent, allowing the industrialization of Long Island Sound. Corporate control of this natural resource conflicts with the reality that for hundreds of years these waters have been used for recreation, navigation, fishing, boating and sustenance. Additionally, the unknown environmental ramifications of the storage facility could be massive.

What we do know is that in addition to a large anchoring system, there will be 25 miles of trenching from the platform to a pipeline tie-in that would significantly disturb Long Island Sound’s bottomlands in New York waters.

We also know water quality in the immediate area could be affected by platform discharges, spills and runoff.

The list of unknowns is much longer. It includes economic impacts on tourism, on Connecticut’s gas prices and on property values. It includes the amount of noise pollution caused from platform operations and its impact on the environment and our surroundings. Other unanswered questions include the impact on fisheries caused by the taking on and releasing of ballast water by Broadwater and its ships, as well as unknown impacts to shipping caused by new, increased barge traffic to the facility.

There are also no answers to the question of how this massive industrial development would affect Long Island Sound as an industrial location.