Our Old Broadwater Foe Resurfaces in Keystone XL Pipeline Proposal

I guess haven't been paying enough attention to the Keystone XL pipeline proposal that is causing so much controversy in Washington because I just realized today that the company that wants to build it is our old friend TransCanada.

TransCanada, as I'm sure you remember, is the the company which -- along with Shell -- brought us the Broadwater fiasco.

That proposal, to build a huge natural gas terminal in the publicly-owned waters of Long Island Sound, wasted our time, energy and money from when it was first proposed, in late 2004, to when Governor David Patterson finally killed it in 2008.

The only reason it wasn't a complete and utter waste was that it showed that occasionally governments recognize a bad idea when they see one.

Studies of Indian Point by Opposing Sides Reach Opposing Conclusions

The people who want the Indian Point nuclear power plants to be shut down and the people who want them to stay open both released reports that "prove" their case. So who are you going to believe?

My guess is that if you are inclined to believe the plant should be shut down, you'll believe the study that says it should be shut down. And if not, then not.

Here's the Times story about the two studies.

The firm that did the study for the Indian Point opponents (Riverkeeper and NRDC) is Synapse Energy, a consultant based in Cambridge, Mass. About six years ago, when Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound was a leading opponent of the Broadwater natural gas plant proposed for Long Island Sound, CFE hired Synapse to study the need for that facility. Synapse concluded that the demand for natural gas in the region wouldn't justify construction of the plant. A couple of years later New York State rejected the proposed plant for more reasons than I have time to enumerate, although you can find them here if you're interested.

The Commerce Department's Press Release About Its Rejection of Broadwater

Here's what the Department of Commerce said in its Broadwater press release today:

The Department of Commerce concluded that the Project’s adverse coastal impacts outweighed its national interest, in part because its location in an undeveloped region of the Sound would significantly impair its unique scenic and aesthetic character and would undermine decades of federal, state, and local efforts to protect the region. The decision was based on the appeal record, which includes information developed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), additional briefs and documents offered by the parties, the views of interested federal agencies, as well as a “friend of the court” brief filed by the Attorney General of Connecticut.

Today’s ruling prevents the issuance of any federal permits necessary for the construction and operation of the Project. It does not, however, prevent Broadwater from developing alternate proposals for federal and state review.

You can read the entire press release here.

Feds Agree: No to Broadwater

Citizens Campaign for the Environment just sent out a press release saying that the U.S. Department of Commerce agrees with New York State that the Broadwater LNG terminal is wrong for Long Island Sound. The Commerce Department is upholding the state's decision of late April.

The Broadwater guys seemed to think that the decision would go their way. Read this post for immediate background although there will be more throughout the day, I'm sure.

Broadwater Appeal Decision is About Three Weeks Away and I'm Not That Worried Although Some Political Pressure Wouldn't Be a Bad Idea

"Multiple" anonymous sources told the Long Island Business News the other day that there was a good chance the feds will overturn New York decision to reject Broadwater's proposal to put a liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound. The deadline for a decision is April 15.

The New London Day reports (here) that the Broadwater suits are making the rounds of newspaper editorial boards and "displayed a disconcerting air of confidence during their visit" to New London. There's also a news story about the visit here.

Make of this what you will. I don't put much credence in the Business News story -- "multiple" sources might mean two people, and since we don't know who they are it's hard to say if we should believe them. Part of the evidence for the conjecture is that the Commerce Department is questioning New York State officials, wanting to know why they rejected Broadwater if FERC and the Coast Guard said it would be safe.

Asking questions means nothing, of course; it would be odd if no questions were asked. On the other hand, the state's extensive reasoning for rejecting Broadwater had nothing to do with safety. Here's what the state said:

1. The Sound is not an industrial park.

2. Broadwater would set a precedent and lead to an unacceptable change in the Sound.

3. Broadwater would occupy public land and water for a private undustrial use.

4. Broadwater would damage the Sound ecologically.If the feds wanted to know why New York rejected Broadwater, all they'd have to do was read the decision, which I'm sure they did. From that point of view, the Business News story makes little sense.

Of course the Business News story could be nonsense and still be right. The feds have to say yes or no, so there's a 50-50 chance that they could overturn New York's decision.

I also think the disconcerting air of confidence on the part of the Broadwater people means little. It's an act. I don't think word has gotten out to them that they're going to win; if it had, it would have gotten out to others, including environmentalists and officials in New York and Connecticut, and we would have been an eruption of conern by now.

Still, it might not be a bad idea to get some political pressure applied in the right places. Christopher Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Rosa DeLauro, Tim Bishop -- someone ought to be urging those folks to make a couple of phone calls.

12:35 p.m. -- David Reich-Hale, the reporter who wrote yesterday's Long Island Business News story, is now saying this, on his blog:

Yesterday, LIBN reported that many business leaders and high-ranking government officials believed the Department of Commerce would reverse Gov. Paterson’s rejection of the Shell Oil/TransCanada LNG.

It's possible that he spoke to many business leaders and high-ranking government officials, but that's not what he reported yesterday. Read it again (here) and you'll see he says next to nothing about who his "multiple" sources are. He said two of them had "strong connections to the state and federal government" and one had "no ties to Shell but with plenty of ties to officials in DC and Albany" (it sounds to me like there are only two sources there).

The only reason I care, by the way, is that he's asking us to believe him but offering very few reasons to actually do so, beyond "I said so."

The Feds Will Have to Decide on Broadwater's Appeal Soon

When Gov. David Paterson and the New York Department of State released their comprehensive and highly rational decision last April to deny Broadwater its permit to build a big LNG facility in Long Island Sound, it set off a timetable for the U.S. Department of Commerce to either agree or disagree (here's a post about last year's decision and there's more if you scroll through my posts of April 2008).

As Newsday reports, here, the deadline is approaching. As I wrote here, I don't think there's much chance of the decision being overturned, but you never know. I also wrote here that even if Commerce overturned the decision, New York still had the right to say no, although I have to admit I might have been speculating a little.

Look Who Loves TransCanada!

We now know that Sarah Palin is an acknowledged supporter of TransCanada, the company that constitutes half the Broadwater LNG conglomerate. That might be worth considering on Election Day, were it not for the fact that it's not even close in Connecticut and New York. (I freely acknowledge that this post is somewhat gratuitous but I wanted to see if putting the words "Sarah Palin" onto my blog did anything to my daily tracking poll.)

Broadwater's Appeal

I haven't had to write about Broadwater in a while; neither has Newsday but that didn't stop them from publishing a short let's-look-at-where-we-are-in-the-appeal-process story today, the nut grafs of which are:

Houston-based Broadwater still is pursuing regulatory channels in hopes of getting the project permitted. The joint venture between Shell and TransCanada had wanted to have its proposed 1,200-foot-long, 200-foot-wide floating terminal in operation 9.2 miles north of Wading River in 2011.

The company's senior vice president in charge of the project, John Hritcko Jr., said in an interview recently that its appeal of New York's decision, to the U.S. Department of Commerce, is pending, with the federal agency expected to cut off comments by mid-December and make a decision next year.

What Broadwater is appealing, of course, is New York State's decision last spring that the proposal is inconsistent with state policies for use of the coastal area. The appeal route isn't an easy one. Here's how Suffolk County editor-reporter Denise Civiletti explained it back then, comparing it to a proposal to run a natural gas pipeline under the Hudson River:

The secretary of commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, can override the state's consistency ruling if he determines that the Broadwater plan is "consistent with the objectives of the CZMA," or if the project is "necessary in the interest of national security."

In 2003, the commerce secretary rejected the consistency appeal of Millennium Pipeline Company, whose plans, like Broadwater's, had been found inconsistent with New York's coastal management policies by the New York secretary of state. The secretary of commerce refused to override the state's determination, ruling that a project is consistent with the objectives of the CZMA only if it furthers the national interest articulated by Congress in a significant way, and if the national interest outweighs the activities' adverse coastal effects, and there is no reasonable alternative available. "A negative finding for any of the three elements will preclude [the] project from being consistent with the objectives of the CZMA," the commerce secretary wrote. In the Millennium case, he found that there was a reasonable alternative to the proposed project. He also refused to allow the project on the grounds of "national security," saying the record must show that "a specific impairment of a national security interest would result if [the] project were not permitted to go forward as proposed." General statements that the project is important to the national interest are not enough, he ruled.

If Commerce rejects the appeal, Broadwater can go to court, which is what Millennium did. Three years later the state decision was upheld.By that schedule, we can expect a court decision perhaps in 2010.

Connecticut AG Blumenthal Wants a Commission to Oversee the Use of the Sound

There was supposed to be a meeting in Suffolk County today among officials and others dissatisfied with the Broadwater process (although not the result, at least not most of them). Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal went in with his own idea -- a regional commission to oversee the economic use of Long Island Sound -- and has already gotten some publicity for it, here.

Suffolk Exec is Trying to Set Up A Sound-Region Energy Summit for July 24

The idea of holding a closed-door meeting among public officials in the Long Island Sound area to talk about regional energy needs is a good one, and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who is planning just such a summit for July 24, is off to a good start, with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal having accepted Levy's invitation.

This press release summarizes who else is invited -- New York's governor and attorney general, for example -- but other than Blumenthal, the list seems light on Connecticut officials. They need to be there too, or else all the good interstate feelings that came out of the anti-Broadwater effort might dissipate. 

Broadwater Appeals; New York and Connecticut Apparently Are Discussing Holding an Energy Summit

Broadwater has appealed New York State's rejection, in April, of its proposal to put a liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound. My guess is that there's very little chance the U.S. Secretary of Commerce will side with Broadwater, but you never know.

Here's Denise Civiletti's story, in the Riverhead News-Review, and here's Judy Benson's story in the New London Day.

I haven't been paying as close attention to my self-assigned blogging responsibilities, for a few reasons (my laptop is down again, which means I have to use my kids' mini-Mac, and I've been named the acting executive director of Westchester Land Trust, where I work, which means I've had to start to learn a new job while still doing m own job), so there are a few things I've missed or haven't paid sufficient attention to (the study that links plastic bottles to shell-rot disease in lobsters is an example of the latter; the report about the economic importance of estuaries that came out a week or so ago and got very little coverage is an example of the former).

In this Newsday story, the reporter refers almost in passing to the possibility of an energy summit on the part of top New York and Connecticut officials, which I think would be a great idea that might even lead to some guidelines about energy development in the two states. 

He also reports that before Eliot Spitzer resigned, New York and Connecticut officials were discussing a deal: New York would reject Broadwater if Connecticut would approve the Islander East pipeline. I had heard talk of that back in early March, I think, but if it's been reported before, I missed it. In any case, it became moot when Spitzer left and Governor Paterson accepted the logic of his Department of State and said no way to Broadwater.

Broadwater Will Appeal New York State's Rejection of its LNG Proposal

No huge surprise here, but Broadwater has officially said it intends to appeal New York State’s rejection of its proposal to put a LNG terminal in Long Island Sound.

Broadwater’s lawyers have written to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking if it would assemble the material needed for the appeal to the Secretary of Commerce (which makes sense, since all the material was submitted to FERC) and also asking FERC to let them know if they won’t be able to do so before the May 12 appeal deadline. If they can’t meet the deadline, Broadwater will ask for an extension.

The letter from Broadwater’s lawyers is here.

After New York's Rejection of Broadwater, FERC Gets Petition to Reverse its Approval

New York State, Connecticut and others have filed petitions with the Federal Energy Regulatory commission, saying that in the aftermath of New York’s rejection of Broadwater, FERC should reverse the decision it made in March approving Broadwater. Here’s what Newsday reported:

... state and local officials on both sides of the Sound are, in effect, trying to buy some insurance by getting the project's March 20 approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission overturned on the grounds of potential environmental damage to the Sound and a contention that the commission violated federal law by making its decision before New York State officials had made theirs.



"The state is trying to insure that its decision is properly respected by [the commission]," Paul DeCotis, New York's deputy energy secretary, said yesterday. The state contends that the commission's March 20 decision is moot because one of the conditions accompanying that permit was New York State's approval -- now denied. "By definition, de facto, because the state [disapproved], the [commission] license is no longer granted," he said.

New York’s decision made the Shell, TransCanada and Broadwater people unhappy, naturally, but it also made people in New Jersey unhappy, because it suggested a site in the Atlantic, off the Jersey shore, as an alternative. From the Asbury Park Press:

"If it's not good enough for Long Island Sound, it's sure as hell isn't good enough for our "Clean Ocean Zone,' " said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a Sandy Hook-based coalition that organized the rally.

That seems fair enough to me, as long as they make their case as strongly and cogently as the anti-Broadwater people did.

Remember: Broadwater Was Rejected Because It Was The Wrong Project in The Wrong Place, Not Because People Opposed It

The Broadwater people and the reporter who wrote this story for the Courant either didn’t read or are deliberately misrepresenting what New York State’s rejection of Broadwater said about alternatives to putting a liquefied natural gas factory in the middle of Long Island Sound.

New York was not saying that we don’t need Broadwater because there will be other LNG terminals coming online. Rather, the state said that alternative locations exist for Broadwater’s project but that Broadwater did not consider them seriously enough.

And yet Broadwater and the Courant’s reporter are peddling the myth that it’s somehow going to be the fault of officials in New York and Connecticut, and of activists who opposed the project, if energy costs rise because Broadwater won’t be built. Here’s what the Courant said:

The other liquefied natural gas terminals proposed, in locations in Delaware and New Brunswick, Canada, will do little for Connecticut, Broadwater officials said, and that's assuming they win approval. "The alternatives that the opposition points to don't exist, haven't been reviewed or aren't designed to serve Connecticut or New York," said John Hritcko Jr., a senior vice president for Broadwater, a consortium of Shell Oil and the TransCanada Pipeline.

That might be true but how is it relevant? The important thing is not the alternatives that the opposition points to, as Hritcko puts it, but the alternatives that the New York State Department of State said were more viable than the middle of Long Island Sound – alternatives that could have and should have been given serious study in the project’s environmental review. It was Broadwater – Shell and TransCanada – who picked the wrong spot. Hritcko should be looking in the mirror and saying, “We made a mistake in not seriously considering the alternative locations that the state identified.”

Here’s what the state said:

DOS has proposed two alternative locations that are feasible and would be consistent with the NY Coastal Management Program. These alternatives would: • present fewer use conflicts with recreational boating, sport fishing, commercial fishing, and commercial vessels;
• have reduced effects on coastal resources when compared to the effects on the LIS estuary;
• be sited outside New York’s public trust waters; and,
• not be visible from shore. Alternative 1 - An FSRU [floating storage regasification unit, jargon for a big LNG terminal] in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 13 miles south of Long Beach Island, west of Cholera Bank. Alternative 2 – An FSRU in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 20 miles south of Fire Island Inlet.

The Broadwater people miscalculated badly. They put all their eggs into the Long Island Sound basket and when the basket fell, all the eggs broke. It was their mistake. Don’t blame us.

A Quick Look Back at the Start of the Broadwater Issue and the Interest In It

It was purely coincidental that I started this blog during the week in December 2004 that the Broadwater people first went public with their proposal to put an LNG terminal in the middle of Long Island Sound. It has been satisfying that over all the months that have passed, the issue of putting an industrial facility in the Sound was a key one.

Here's what I wrote on December 5, 2004:

To me, the key issue won't be the risk of explosion or the possible effect on lobsters ... but rather the appropriateness of Long Island Sound becoming an indusustrial site. Not the Sound's harbors or cities, mind you, but the Sound itself.

Do we want businesses to be able to establish major industrial facilities on the Sound, and do we want to look at major industrial facilities on the Sound. I argue in my book that it was attitudes about what Long Island Sound was best used for that allowed it to become the place where we dumped our industrial waste and then our household waste (that is, our sewage), which in turn led to the pollution problems we're trying to fix now.

The Broadwater LNG terminal would not be dumping into the Sound, but the proposal embodies an attitude about what Long Island Sound is best used for that hearkens back to the bad old days.

When the New York Department of State issued its decision rejecting Broadwater last week, this was the first reason it gave:

1. Long Island Sound is not an industrial park. It is an Estuary of National Significance designated by Congress 20 years ago.

2. Broadwater would be precedent-setting and would permanently change Long Island Sound from a place used for recreation, tourism, and traditional maritime activities to a place where more on-water industrial development could happen.

Was I unusually perceptive way back then? Nope. Just stating the obvious.

The other thing I wanted to mentioned is my own gauge of how much interest there is in Broadwater. Until last week this blog had been averaging about 325 page views a day, and 200 unique visitors. But with the Broadwater decision looming, the averages for Tuesday through Friday of last week were 473 and 336, with a peak of 579 page views and 405 unique visitors on Thursday. And the number of returning visitors rocketed as well. Proof, if anyone needs it, that when the issue is hot, people want good information quickly.

In the Broadwater Fight, the Flea Won

There must be a fable in some culture about how a flea, through persistence, kills a gorilla or a lion or some other creature that wants to impose its will on creatures who don't want to be imposed upon.

Maybe Sid Bail, from the Wading River Civic Association, should write a contemporary version. It was back in late 2004, when the Broadwater proposal was brand new, that Sid was quoted in the Long Island section of the New York Times about the David-versus-Goliath odds of people from Long Island fighting Shell and TransCanada, Broadwater's corporate sponsors.

"I see us as a flea on the buttocks of Shell Oil," Sid said back then.

The flea won.

Paterson Says No to Broadwater Because It Would Turn Over Part of the Sound to a Private Company and Exclude the Public

New York State's reasoning for rejecting Broadwater was exactly right. Governor David Paterson, speaking at Sunken Meadow State Park within the last hour, officially announced New York State's rejection of the proposal. Newsday cited Paterson as saying

"... the facility would not guarantee low cost natural gas to Long Island. He said it would disrupt commercial and recreational fishing and would, in essence, turn over a section of the sound to a private company at the exclusion of the general public.

Calling energy "our new currency," Paterson spent much of his speech talking about energy alternatives could be developed to replace whatever capacity Broadwater would have provided. Paterson spoke to a cheering crowd of activists and legislators gathered on the park's boardwalk.

Broadwater of course says it won't give up:

John Hritcko, senior vice president and regional project director, said in a statement, "The regulatory process provides Broadwater a number of options going forward and we intend to fully review the decision and findings, then evaluate the project's next steps."

Those options including appealing the state's rejection to the U.S. Department of Commerce, and going to court.

The Long Island Power Authority, which of course is a state authority, said it supports the state's decision. Kevin Law, LIPA's president and chief executive:

"Broadwater was never the be-all and end-all for Long Island's energy future," he said, adding that he supports Paterson's decision. He said, however, that altenatives like added pipeline capacity or a liquid natural gas terminal in a different location should be explored.

And I agree with this (as do the environmental groups that were Broadwater's chief opponents, Citizens Campaign for the Environment and Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound):

Matthew T. Crosson, president of the Long Island Association, the island's largest business group and a conditional supporter of Broadwater, said, "As proposed, the Broadwater project would have disproportionately burdened Long Island without producing a corresponding benefit to the region...[However] it is now incumbent upon Governor Paterson to clearly state how New York will help Long Island meet its energy needs in practical, low-cost ways that can be achieved in the near future."

As of now, nothing about the decision yet on this website.

Paterson, New York State Say No to Broadwater

The word got out late yesterday and started appearing on newspaper websites in early evening -- New York has decided to reject Broadwater's proposal to put a liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound.

The state Department of State, which was required to determine if Broadwater was consistent with state policies for use of the coastal area, decided that it was not. Of 13 criteria, it failed on six, according to the Courant.

Governor David Paterson and Secretary of State Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez will make the announcement today at 2, at Sunken Meadow State Park.

There was no indication in any of the news accounts which of the 13 criteria were the basis if the rejection, although presumably we'll know later today. Remember though that early last year the Department of State gave a clear indication of which direction it was headed in, which you can read about here. And the coastal policies themselves are here.

Remember, by the way, that Denise Civiletti, out on eastern Long Island, learned in early February, that the Department of State had decided to reject the Broadwater proposal and was ready to go public, here. Knowing that, it would have been very interesting and disconcerting if two months later the decision had been revered.

One personal observation about the Department of State. Twenty years ago I reported on its coastal resources division's role in deciding the fate of a proposal to build 2,000 condos in high rises on Davids Island, in the Sound off New Rochelle. My impression then was that they were scrupulous and fair, and operated with the highest integrity under intense pressure from both proponents (including the entire New Rochelle city government, organized labor and construction interests, among others) and opponents (well-connected and well-organized officials of other communities and residents of New Rochelle and elsewhere). Broadwater was no different. The Department of State made the right decision both times, and the governors -- Mario Cuomo then, David Paterson now -- were smart enough to let the decisions of their experts stand.

If you're interested in this sort of thing (and I am), the news itself came from Connecticut yesterday, not New York. New York officials were keeping quiet to the press, not wanting to pre-empt the governor's press conference. But they were nice enough to tell their anxious counterparts in Connecticut the news, and the Connecticut officials were too thrilled and excited to keep it quiet.

Chris Zurcher compiled all the headlines and links by early this morning. Here are the ones that I read: Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Newsday, AP.

I'll try to follow this with more quick hits throughout the day, if my responsibilities at work allow it.

The Governor and the Secretary of State Will Be on the Island Tomorrow for the Broadwater Announcement

The Governor and the Secretary of State will travel to Long Island tomorrow to announce the Broadwater decision. This email just came across from Kasey Jacobs, of Citizens Campaign for the Environment:

We've finally received word that the decision we've all been waiting for will be tomorrow, Thursday April 10th.

Governor David Paterson and Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez are expected to announce their decision in-person on Long Island tomorrow afternoon. Details will be announced later today, so please stand by for a follow-up email with that information.

We need as many people there as possible to show our opposition en masse!

This has been a long and challenging fight. A huge thanks to all for everything that's been accomplished. Please come tomorrow so we can support each other on the most important day of the campaign.

Hope to see you there!

Together we can make a difference,
Kasey

Kasey Jacobs
Program Coordinator

Would two politicians travel to a region where virtually every politician is against Broadwater just to announce that they are giving it the green light?

One More Thought About the Broadwater Poll While Waiting for the Secretary of State

Regardless of whether the Broadwater poll was a sham (and it was), the issue should not be decided based on how many people think it's a good (or bad) idea. If putting an LNG terminal in the middle of Long Island Sound is bad for the Sound, then what does it matter if a lot of people want it?