Broadwater not ready to give up on plans

BY TOM INCANTLUPO | tom.incantalupo@newsday.com

7:18 PM EDT, April 10, 2008

As New York Gov. David A. Paterson pronounced the Broadwater barge as "behind us" Thursday and project opponents here and in Connecticut congratulated each other, the promoters of the Long Island Sound gas terminal showed no signs of being ready to give up.

"We're not tone deaf but we haven't heard the fat lady sing," John Hritcko, senior vice president and regional project director of Houston-based Broadwater Energy said in an interview after Paterson spoke. He spent the day, he said, doing at least a dozen interviews and preparing for a televised debate on the project that was scheduled for Thursday night.

He said in a statement earlier, "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."

Broadwater's options, Hritcko said, include appealing the state's rejection to the U.S. Department of Commerce, and, if that is unsuccesful, going to court.

But, he said, company officials don't consider viable an option preferred by environmentalists and suggested by state officials: to relocate the proposed faciilty to the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island. "We'd have to start from scratch," he said, contending that pipelines connecting such a facility to the mainland would present thorny environmental issues of their own.

ExxonMobil and a private investor group each have proposed liquid natural gas terminals in the Atlantic, east of New Jersey and south of Long Island. Both projects are pending federal approvals.

Broadwater's options do, however, include simply giving up, Hritcko said. "Doing nothing and walking away is always an option," he said, "But you cannot lose sight of the fact of why we are; this region pays the highest costs in the country and there are a large number of individuals and groups who support Broadwater."

Few of them, however, were at Sunken Meadow State Park Thursday, where a crowd of several hundred local politicians and environmentalists who had waged a battle for more than three years against the project -- along with a smattering of beach goers enjoying a warm day -- heard Paterson, standing at a podium with Long Island Sound behind him, pronounce the project dead.

The new governor, who inherited the issue from his disgraced predecessor Eliot Spitzer, got a standing ovation when he announced the technical manner by which the state was nixing the project: The state's Department of State officially deemed the terminal "inconsistent" with state coastal zone management policies, primarily on environmental and visual grounds and interference with public use of the Sound.

Other speakers praised Paterson's decision. "This is a great day for Long Island and a great day for Long Island Sound," said Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton).

Another speaker, Kevin Law, president and chief executive officer of the Long Island Power Authority, said in an interview earlier that the Island's principal electricity supplier never counted on gas from Broadwater. "Broadwater was never the be-all and end-all for Long Island's energy future," he said.

Electricity producer and gas retailer KeySpan/National Grid, a potential customer for Broadwater's gas, noted in a statement that it never took a position on the barge but added, "We are concerned that Long Island will need additional supplies of natural gas for the future to meet the growth that largely comes from the conversion market of oil to natural gas.

Away from the event, Broadwater supporters weighed in, too. In Queens, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters he believes Broadwater's proposal was "environmentally friendly," and "affordable" and said, "At some point in time, we have to stop looking at possibilities and actually do something, and this was one of the things we certainly should have done."

Jerry Kremer, a former state assemblyman who is now advisory board chairman of the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, said in a statement, "Governor Paterson's opposition to the Broadwater liquefied natural gas facility is unfortunate." The group represents more than 125 business, labor, and community groups and works for ample and reliable electricity.

Broadwater Energy had hoped to have the facility in operation in 2011, taking on super-cold liquified natural gas from tankers, heating it to return it to a gaseous state, then shipping west via a new 25 mile-long pipeline to have been laid on the sound floor.

That pipeline would have connected with an existing one that runs across the Sound from Connecticut to Northport.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously voted in Washington, D.C, last month to approve the project, which would have been sited about nine miles north of Wading River. It issued 80 stipulations that the project's designers must take to reduce the environmental and safety impacts of what would be the nation's first floating liquefied natural gas processing plant.

The State of Connecticut, which has opposed the project from the start, last week formally asked the energy commission to reconsider its approval. Connecticut officials also vowed to fight in federal court if their request is rejected.

A consultant's report released in July by the Long Island Power Authority said the billion cubic feet of additional gas from Broadwater would have saved New Yorkers a total of $14.8 billion in natural gas and electricity costs between 2010 when the facility would begin operating and 2020. The report did not promise rates lower than they are now, however -- only lower than what they would have been without Broadwater -- about 17 percent lower, in the case of natural gas.

Staff writer Andrew Strickler contributed to this story.