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Broadwater won't attend Thursday's TV 'town meeting'

By TOM INCANTALUPO | tom.incantalupo@newsday.com

6:36 PM EDT, March 25, 2008

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Broadwater Energy executives are taking a pass on a local TV station's "town hall meeting" Thursday evening on their controversial natural gas barge in Long Island Sound, saying "it would not lend itself to a factual debate."

The decision, after disagreements over the format and location of the session, will leave just one supporter of the project in the room -- energy consultant and academic Matthew Cordaro -- facing three oponents: Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop (D- Southampton) and environmentalist Adrienne Esposito.

But Bill Cooper, president of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, is to participate via satellite, as will opponent Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general.

The 90-minute meeting is to be broadcast live on Cablevision System Corp.'s News 12 Long Island beginning at 7 p.m. from Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingville.

In a letter dated yesterday to News 12 news director Patrick Dolan, Broadwater senior vice president John Hritcko wrote: "Although we appreciate News 12's sincere efforts, we believe that the program did not provide a true and inclusive environment that would lend itself to a factual debate."

Hritcko's letter, a copy of which Broadwater provided to Newsday, complained about the location of the meeting. "A Long Island town hall \[meeting\] about energy and the Broadwater project must be accessible to all Long Islanders, not just those living on the north shore of the east end of the Island," Hritcko wrote. "The location in Brookhaven presupposes that Broadwater concerns only one constituency." News12 noted in a statement that Farmingville is midway between the Queens-Nassau border and the eastern tip of Long Island.

Hritcko said other areas of disagreement were the list of panelists and the plans by News12 to include callers from Connecticut in the broadcast.

"The more we talked, the more we didn't like what we were hearing," Hritcko said by telephone yesterday.

Dolan, through an assistant, referred a call to the station's public relations spokeswoman, Deborah Koller Feeney, who said, "We do not have anybody from Broadwater confirmed at this time to attend." Broadwater Energy, a joint venture between Shell U.S. Gas and Power and power producer TransCanada, had never formally agreed to attend, Hritcko said.

Widely opposed by local political leaders, civic groups and environmentalists, the proposed liquid natural gas processing plant is, nevertheless, supported by many in the business community and trade unions for the billion cubic feet a day of additional natural gas it would provide.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week gave its formal approval for the project. The Commision's staff agreed with Broadwater and its supporters that the barge was needed to draw additional natural gas to the region and that the barge could be operated safely and with minimal environmental impact.

Primary responsiblity for approval and licensing of the giant barge rests with the commission, and there is no appeal process for its rulings, except the courts. But the proposed site in New York waters allows any of three state agencies to block it. Their then-boss, former Gov. Elliot Spitzer, was to have decided by April 11 whether state permits should be issued. But incoming Gov. David Paterson said on March 13 that he might postpone a decision for further study.