EPA official raises concerns about $3.6B Propel project, questions timetable

A top Environmental Protection Agency administrator on Friday mirrored concerns voiced by local conservation groups and lawmakers about potential environmental impacts of the Propel NY Energy cable, raising questions about the developers’ plans to start work later this year.

While not addressing whether the federal government would issue a needed permit for the project, Michael R. Martucci, New York regional administrator for the agency, said Propel has a "tremendous amount" of work to do to respond to local and EPA concerns, including about potential impacts to North Shore waterways.

"We’re hearing, very clearly, concerns in the North Shore communities as it relates to many things, environmental concerns, impacts on the community, and I think Propel needs to engage these communities" to address the concerns, Martucci said. It's the first time that a federal official has weighed in on the project.

"I remain skeptical they will be able to complete all the things they need to complete to see this project go into construction this year," he added.

Susan Craig, a spokeswoman for the New York Power Authority, which is developing Propel with New York Transco, said Propel has already widely engaged local stakeholders and included their input in environmental management and construction plans filed in recent weeks. "We’ve gone out in boats and done sediment studies, we have specified protections," she said.

Those studies and plans "entail exactly all the environmental protections" needed to address state and federal mandates and local concerns, Craig said. "All that work has been done so that we can proceed with construction on schedule."

Gov. Kathy Hochul has called Propel a "critical" infrastructure project to improve reliability.

Propel has already awarded three pre-construction contracts and has plans to start work between October and December. Newsday has reported that numerous groups, including Hempstead Harbor conservation groups, two villages, school districts, business groups and citizens have raised a long list of concerns about the project.

Martucci appeared with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at a Long Island Farm Bureau panel at Schmitt’s Farm in Riverhead on Friday in which Zeldin also expressed optimism about projects that could see Long Island’s aging fleet of power plants upgraded or replaced. He told the group that "Long Islanders have a Bat-phone to the EPA" to ask for help.

The Trump administration, after working to block future offshore wind projects, stands ready to work with energy companies and utilities to advance conventional power plants, he said.

The administration is also cognizant of the offshore wind origins of Propel, which was awarded as part of a state-issued "need" to transport upward of 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind from planned arrays off Long Island to other parts of the state. Many of those wind projects have since been withdrawn or canceled.

"You know there is a renewable energy component to Propel that this administration has been very vocal about the costs associated with that, particularly with the wind components of Propel," Martucci said.

The federal government is also cognizant of the "laudable" transmission elements of Propel and knows it’s been "very long" since new infrastructure has been brought to Long Island (the 65-mile Neptune cable was completed and activated in 2007), he said.

But environmental and community concerns are taking the bulk of the federal review of the project, Martucci said, noting that EPA advises the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on specific Clean Water Act aspects of the federal permit.

Martucci said the EPA has heard from its partners on Long Island Sound rehabilitation projects "about the impacts that would be happening to Hempstead Harbor and the bottom of the Sound," including some that could affect work that "we have participated in as relates to oyster repopulation" that is helping to rehabilitate those waterways.

Craig of NYPA said, "There are no oysters in the project pathway."

Still, Martucci said he has strong doubts about Propel’s ability to start construction later this year, given the work he said that still needs to be done.

"What we’re looking for is for them to engage with these local groups that have concerns, with these local leaders who have expressed some very real concerns. There’s work left to do before they’re ready to put a shovel in the ground," he said.

EPA has met with local leaders, town supervisors and members of the Long Island Sound coalition. "This conversation has come up with that group very, very frequently," he said. 

A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.