Dan's Papers - January 18, 2008 - Meet The Power, Water And Gas Dictatorship

There are two decisions that are slowly coming toward a conclusion and they are driving everybody crazy.

One is Broadwater, the proposal to build a floating gasification plant on stilts in Long Island Sound nine miles off Riverhead. Giant tankers would tie up to it. Liquefied gas would be converted to natural gas and then sent on its way via some underwater pipes, some of which are already in place servicing other gasification plants onshore.

This past week, after hearing pros and cons, the Federal Government gave its conditional approval on this project. They did listen to us. But we lost.

The other proposal would put power lines from Southampton to Bridgehampton, either underground or on overhead wires. And that too is winding down to a conclusion, a decision expected - by LIPA - within two weeks.

LIPA has held more than half a dozen public hearings about the issue of getting more power generated and sent to Bridgehampton for use further out on the East End, and the crazy part is they've got four different possible routes for these lines, and they have on each route the possibility of having them all underground, some of them underground or none of them underground.

I pointed out to Michael Deering of LIPA when I spoke to him today that whereas Broadwater has proposed one solution, LIPA has a variation involving maybe twenty different possibilities. So why involve the public at this point? Why not wait to present just one or two final possibilities?

The answer is that with LIPA and with Broadwater and with the water company, this is no democracy. All three of these entities, after getting approval from federal officials, do what they want. And in about ten days, LIPA will decide how they want to get the power to where it has to go. But they all do want to hear what we have to say.

Ever think about this? Here in Bridgehampton at Dan's Papers, we actually have a telephone pole sticking out of the ground on our property. We weren't asked if it could be put there. It wasn't there when we bought the building. It's just that one day, LIPA showed up with a truck, walked across our lawn and put it in. Want electricity? You gotta have a pole there. Want water? We gotta put a pipe in a trench through here for those people in the back. Want natural gas? Well, we do have to ask the feds, but beyond that, we appreciate what you have to say, but then we decide.

Well, we yelled loud. And they are people too. But you know what? If you want lights when you flip the switch, if you want heat when you turn up the thermostat and if you want water coming out of your tap, you can yell and scream, but you are going to get it.