National Grid Seeking $1 Billion In Rate Hikes To Pay For New Proposals

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 Despite New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act passed last year that sets a goal of 70 percent renewable energy in the state by 2030, and the state ban in 2014 on the environmentally polluting process of fracking in New York, National Grid is moving ahead with a major expansion of the transport and distribution of fracked gas—with Suffolk and Nassau Counties primary repositories. 

National Grid, a British company which acquired Keyspan for $7.3 billion in 2006 and is the monopoly gas utility on Long Island, claims the expansion of pipelines, compressed fracked gas sites and other facilities for bringing fracked gas here is necessary because of a “gas shortage.”

Six of the eight projects involving fracked gas that National Grid is seeking to have the state Department of Public Service to give its OK to are in Suffolk and Nassau—three in Suffolk, three in Nassau. And, the company is seeking state approval for nearly $1 billion in rate hikes to pay for its new gas proposals. 

“The National Grid claim of a ‘gas shortage’ is false,” declares Kim Fraczek, director of the Sane Energy Project, a leader in the recently successful battle against the Williams Pipeline. “What National Grid is trying to do now,” says Ms. Fraczek, “is expand the fracking infrastructure and get more residents hooked onto fracked gas especially in Suffolk County where there is a minimum use of gas now.”

The Williams Pipeline, pushed by National Grid, would have brought fracked gas from Pennsylvania, through New Jersey, then 23 miles underwater south of Staten Island, under New York Harbor, to the Rockaways, part of National Grid’s territory.

As public and governmental opposition to this $1 billion project mounted, National Grid threatened a “moratorium” on new gas hook-ups despite reports showing there was no “gas shortage” as claimed by the company to justify the Williams Pipeline. Governor Andrew Cuomo stood up to National Grid calling for a state probe of the “moratorium.” Meanwhile, there was intense grassroots action including demonstrations. The state Department of Environmental Conservation denied a water quality permit needed for the pipeline and also cited the Climate Act, and earlier this year the fight was won. 

The Sane Energy Project is now involved in challenging National Grid’s new scheme to get fracked gas to Long Island and “create captive fossil fuel customers when we should be moving Long Island to a renewable jobs economy,” says Ms. Fraczek. The New York City-based organization describes itself on its website—https://www.saneenergy.org/—as “committed to replacing fracked gas infrastructure with community-led, sustainable energy. We oppose the development, transport and export of fracked gas—‘natural gas’—in favor of an urgent and just transition to a renewable economy with the goal of zero fossil fuel or nuclear dependence.” 

Fracking is a huge environmental and health threat. Some 600 chemicals—many of them cancer-causing—and massive amounts of water under pressure are sent underground to break apart shale formations and release gas and oil. There are constant leaks from the piping bringing the petroleum up causing groundwater to become contaminated by it and the chemicals.

A landmark TV documentary on this was Gasland, nominated for an Academy Award in 2011. It and its sequel, Gasland Part II, both directed and reported by Josh Fox, include numerous scenes of homeowners turning on their water faucets, setting a match to what is coming out—with the result: the mix of water and gas bursting into flames. Many people interviewed had become seriously ill.

The three fracked gas projects National Grid wants to build in Suffolk are an “expanded transmission” facility in Riverhead for $25 million, over 14,000 feet of new “Southeastern Suffolk transmission mains” for $40 million, and expansion in Northport of the Iroquois Pipeline crossing Long Island Sound to cost $272 million.

Ms. Fraczek says what’s especially “heinous” about the National Grid move is that New York passed the Climate Act to reduce “the use of fossil fuels—like gas—and have energy based on sources that don’t contribute to climate change. But National Grid is pushing in the other direction for its profit. There are many alternatives to gas including energy efficiency retrofits, air source heat pumps that can be installed in homes, solar thermal systems and geothermal systems Maybe we should just do away with this corporate shareholder model and push for New Yorkers to own our own power grid and cut out the expensive middle-man.”

Because of the climate crisis, she says, “California is burning, the Gulf Coast is flooded by hurricanes one after another, and Long Island, a waterfront community surrounded on all sides by rising water stands to be threatened. We want to make sure all the nature and beauty of Long Island is not underwater because of decisions favoring fossil fuel giants over the future.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Suffolk Closeup - Petition To End LIPA's "Poison Pill"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. is preparing legislation to require the Long Island Power Authority to allow Long Islanders to make use of Community Choice Aggregation in the same way the rest of the utility ratepayers in New York State can.

“My fear from the beginning was that LIPA would stick a poison pill in any CCA program for Long Island—and it has,” says Mr. Thiele.

Meanwhile, the Town of Southampton and the citizens’ initiative Choice Community Power are spearheading a petition drive on this, too. A petition to LIPA trustees has just gone up on the town’s website at http://southamptontownny.gov/LIPA 

Community Choice Aggregation, CCA, is a program a municipality can adopt covering users of electricity and gas in its area. The municipality could necessitate all or some portion of the supply generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind and thus encourage the use of renewable energy. And the municipality through a “CCA administrator” could seek competitive bids for electricity and gas. In this way CCA would facilitate the purchase of energy on the open market so ratepayers would not have to settle for price charged by their area’s utility. 

But LIPA, charges Lynn Arthur, energy chair of the Southampton Town Green Sustainability Advisory Committee and a leading proponent of CCA, says LIPA has undermined that aspect of CCA here. It has placed CCA under its “Long Island Choice” program with “an adjustment” that would eliminate the cost savings.

This, says Mr. Thiele, is the kind of “poison pill” he feared. “This surcharge, this poison pill, would take away any financial incentive for CCA,” said Mr. Thiele, of Sag Harbor, chair of the Assembly’s Local Governments Committee. 

Says Mr. Thiele: “I was always skeptical that LIPA would move forward on CCA because there’s nothing in it for them—although there’s a lot in it for ratepayers.” Mr. Thiele’s legislation would have LIPA “provide CCA to Long Islanders under the same terms that the state Public Service Commission provides for CCA to operate in the rest New York State—and that’s without a surcharge.” 

In 2016 the PSC opened up having municipalities in the state arrange for CCA programs. CCAs have formed across the nation with other states authorizing local governments to start them including New Jersey, California, Virginia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and Rhode Island. On Long Island, the Towns of Hempstead, Southampton and Brookhaven have passed measures providing for CCAs. 

The petition on the website of Southampton Town reads: “Dear LIPA Board Members, It is important that Long Island residents are no longer left behind. CCA authority has been enabled for the rest of the state since 2016 and each of the New York State investor-owned utilities have already implemented” CCAs. “It is important that Long Island municipalities are able to source the electricity power supply for residents and small businesses, to access clean energy markets, and to protect consumers with fixed electricity rates without cancellation fees. Further, the option of CCA on Long Island is essential for the success of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 declaring the environmentally critical standards of reaching 70% renewable electricity power supply by 2030.”

Jessica Strombach, managing director of Joule Community Power, the “CCA administrator” for Southampton Town, in a letter to LIPA CEO Tom Falcone and the LIPA board, wrote: “Southampton, Brookhaven and Hempstead have recently passed CCA laws and several other municipalities throughout Long Island are also considering passage of such laws. However, we are concerned because it has become clear to us that the structure of the LIPA Choice Tariff will not allow for a competitive CCA electricity supply process. This construct therefore blocks our authority, Governor Cuomo’s agenda, as well as our own important municipal agenda. Indeed, as of today, the LIPA Choice Tariff, combined with LIPA billing limitations, blocks CCA in its entirety. This undermines the opportunity for all of Long Island….LIPA asserts that this energy charge is simply a pass-through…for LIPA’s purchase of on-Island capacity for which no market exists.” This, she says, creates “two classes of NY citizen” with Long Islanders “denied the right” of those “in the rest of the state.”

Mr. Thiele comments that the LIPA “extra charge” for CCA users is “another one of these cases of LIPA’s lack of accountability, lack of transparency and lack of oversight.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Traffic In Smithtown Is Likely To Get Worse

TRAFFIC TIE-UPS ARE NOT AN EASY FIX IN SMITHTOWN. WITH FUTURE DEVELOPMENT, THEY ARE LIKELY TO GET WORSE

By Richard Murdocco

As Smithtown’s beleaguered road networks shoulder burdens that they were never designed to handle, the broader question isn’t how to all together eliminate volume, which has been amplified in recent months as stir-crazy Long Islanders take to the roads for a desperate change-of-scenery, but how to best accommodate Smithtown’s 21^st century transportation needs using an antiquated 20^th century network.   

One local expert told Smithtown Matters that key traffic trouble spots throughout the town can be solved with a healthy mix of investment from policymakers, ingenuity from engineers, and a newfound open-mindedness from skeptical residents, who say that things cannot be improved unless future development is more carefully considered.

As a community at full suburban build-out, the Town of Smithtown serves as a unique environment for transportation planners to work within. Tackling traffic in such a landscape is challenging, a fact that Smithtown’s draft comprehensive plan document openly acknowledges when it states that “…at this stage in the town’s development, it is not feasible to build or widen highways or bridges.”

According to Peter Hans, the Town’s planning director, Smithtown’s traffic issues aren’t necessarily unique compared to those of neighboring Brookhaven or Huntington, but still present sizable challenges. “Some areas it’s better, some areas it’s worse,” Hans told Smithtown Matters, going on to highlight some of the more locally troublesome areas for drivers, including the intersection of Main Street and NYS Route 111 in downtown Smithtown, and the intersection of Old Nichols Road and Smithtown Boulevard in Nesconset. 

In Nesconset, locals are no stranger to the traffic tie-ups at the intersection of Old Nicholls Road and Smithtown Boulevard, where residents can sit idling across a series of traffic light cycles as they watch the line of cars grow behind them.  

Norma Dispenza, a licensed real estate salesperson with Signature Premier Properties in Smithtown who has both lived and worked in the area for years, said that the traffic congestion in the hamlet is impacting quality of life. “It’s tough to get out of the block during the morning,” she said, adding that conditions aren’t likely to improve any time soon if the town decides to approve a nearby apartment project that is being considered by officials.

The Preserve at Smithtown, a $47 million project proposed by developer Jim Tsunis, is calling for 180 units of age-restricted residential units that would be built on 24 acre parcel that is located off Smithtown Boulevard near Gibbs Pond road. “They just want to bring more growth, but they didn’t think about widening the road,” Dispenza said. “I just don’t think anybody ever thought it would get as busy as it did.” 

Meanwhile in downtown Smithtown, the traffic backups cascade as cars logjam their way through a mix of merging lanes and shifting speed limits. The roadway used to be more streamlined, but changes were put into place in the wake of a series of tragic pedestrian deaths. Among the victims was 11 year-old Courtney Sipes, who was struck and killed by a car while crossing Main Street in 2009. Her death called local officials to action, and a series of new crosswalks and an accompanying iron fence to prevent jaywalking were installed. 

The changes weren’t enough. 

In the next year or so after Sipes death, three others were subsequently struck by cars, two of whom who were killed. New York State transportation officials took action and consolidated two of Main Street’s westbound travel lanes into one travel lane, changed the timing of traffic signals, and created a designated left-turn lane throughout the downtown stretch of road.

With the changes to Main Street’s layout, Hans feels that the overall safety of the route has improved in recent years. “I think the flow improved when they put in the turning lane,” he said, adding that the designated turning lane and resynced signal timing has helped offset the removal of the westbound travel lanes. Additionally, Hans said that the changes help first responders bypass traffic on emergency calls.

According to Hans, both downtown Smithtown and the troublesome intersection in Nesconset are areas that would benefit from the placement of a rotary or traffic circle, as is frequently used at formerly crowded interchanges throughout Europe. 

More locally, traffic circles have replaced clogged intersections around Riverhead and have been previously used throughout Suffolk County for decades. The tools eventually fell out of favor due to drivers being generally unfamiliar with them, and the fact that traffic circles typically have a footprint that requires a large amount of open space, which Hans said further complicates their placement.

With more apartments now being built downtown, such changes may be necessary in the coming years to ensure that traffic keeps moving. 

The Lofts at Maple and Main, an $18.2 million mixed-use project by Northport-based VEA 181st Realty that is being built directly across from Town Hall, will add 71 new apartments and 15,000 square feet of retail space to 3.6-acres. Local officials expect the project to attract new investment by developers in the area, with one telling Newsday last year that the project is “just the beginning.”

If that truly is the case, policymakers will need to find a way to accommodate the new congestion that will increasingly ensnare locals. If they can’t begin to untangle the town’s traffic tie-ups, Smithtown’s residents will be happy to crowd the polls to elect officials who can. 

Richard Murdocco is an award-winning columnist and adjunct professor in Stony Brook University’s public policy graduate program. He regularly writes and speaks about Long Island’s real estate development issues. Follow him on Twitter @thefoggiestidea. You can email Murdocco at Rich@TheFoggiestIdea.org.

85.2 Million Robocalls Made To Area Code 631 In 2020

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 “We’ve had a recent urgent update on your Medicare coverage,” said the robocall. A second followed announcing: “We’ve been trying to reach you concerning your car’s extended warranty.” 

Caller ID won’t help you these days to know it’s a robocall: the phone number and place where the call is supposedly coming from often is listed as a nearby community and sometimes where you live. As I’m writing this column, I received a robocall—the caller ID said it was made from where I live, Sag Harbor—saying: “This is from Social Security administration…Your Social Security number was used in Texas. To get more information, press 1.”

I just called the number that the caller ID listed for the supposed “Social Security administration” and the message was: “The number you dialed is not in service.”

Robocall Index reports that 85.2 million robocalls were made in 2020 to Suffolk County’s 631 area code as of August 20. It says as of August 20 nationally 30.1 billion robocalls were made in 2020. That’s 118.3 million per day, 4.9 million per hour, 1.4 thousand per second, says the website. The country is on its way to the same volume of annual robocalls—58 billion—made in 2019, up from 47.8 billion in 2018.

We bought a new answering machine several years ago but it just provides blocking for a maximum of 250 numbers. Answering machines now would need to be able to block thousands of robocall numbers.

A National Do Not Call Registry took effect in 2003.  But, says the web page titled “Robocalls” of the Federal Trade Commission, it “is designed to stop sales calls from real companies that follow the law. The Registry is a list that tells telemarketers what numbers not to call…Scammers don’t care if you’re on the Registry.”

Both the FTC and Federal Communications Commission on the national level are trying to do something about robocalls. This July, according to the FCC’s web pages covering robocalls, it meted out a $224 million fine for a “telemarketer” who “made approximately 1 billion” calls in a “robocall campaign” claiming to be selling “health insurance” including to those on the Do Not Call List.” The agency says: “Unwanted calls are far and away the biggest consumer complaint to the FCC.”

In New York, there’s a measure “pending” in the State Legislature, originally introduced last year, that could eliminate robocalls in New York. “At the center of the bill is consent,” explains State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, one of 55 Assembly co-sponsors of the legislation. It is titled the “Robocall Prevention Act” and among its provisions—its central one—is its requirement that a robocall can only be “made with the prior express consent of the called party.”

Also a co-sponsor of the measure is Assemblyman Michael J. Fitzpatrick of St. James.

Who in New York, or the United States, would give her or his consent to receive robocalls? I’d venture nobody, period.

The bill was passed in the Senate in 2019 but wasn’t voted upon in the Assembly, and Mr. Thiele wants action this year.

Consumer Action and Consumers Union, have both been active in taking on robocalls. (Linda Sherry, who earlier was a journalist and editor in Suffolk County, is the director of national priorities of Consumer Action.)

A Consumer Action piece last year titled “The Robocall Scourge” declared: “Those automated telephone calls that deliver pre-recorded messages to your landline or cell phone—aka “robocalls”—are bombarding consumers’ devices at alarming rates…Spoofed robocalls are an increasing problem for phone owners. These calls use fraudulent caller identification information to disguise the caller’s true identity. For instance, a con artist will “spoof,” fake, the name and/or number on a phone’s call display…Spoofing legitimate numbers makes it more likely you will answer the phone and fall for the con.” (The “Robocall Prevention Act” would make this illegal.)

Consumer Action points to “robocall combat tools” noting there “are a slew of call blocker devices available for purchase that you attach to the phone line….Typically, the devices come pre-programmed with thousands of known spam numbers to block, and they allow you to add new numbers as they come in. You can find retailers and product reviews…by doing an online search for ‘landline call blockers.’ Or, your carrier might offer devices on their website, like Verizon.” Also recommended is Nomorobo with its system that “checks each incoming phone number” and, “If you receive a spam call, Nomorobo intercepts…and disconnects it.”

I’d say the ideal remedy is government (it should go national) requiring that a robocall can only be made to a person who gives “prior express consent.” That could end the scourge.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Hundreds Gather In Nesconset To Honor 9/11 First Responders

Hundreds of people attended a ceremony at the 911 Responders Remembered Park Saturday. The September 12th ceremony, an annual event, honors the memory of those who have passed away during the last year from causes directly related to their activity at ground zero. The memorial wall now contains the names of almost 1,700 people of different backgrounds, occupations, religions, gender, ethnicity with one thing in common, they were at ground zero when it was dangerous.

The ceremony was emotional as the names of 170 people who died this year from 9/11 health related illnesses were read. The reading was followed by the ringing of a bell. Sobbing could be heard and heartbreak could be seen in the faces of the attendees.

Nesconset resident John Feal is the person responsible for the creation of the 911 Responders Remembered Park. Feal was injured while working at ground zero. After recovering from his injury he committed himself to recognizing the efforts of the people who worked at the site whether they acted in an official capacity or as a volunteer. John perservered and the help of others the park officially opened in 2011.

The park considered by John Feal  to be his “legacy”  is so much more, it is a place for remembering the lives of loved ones. 

Visitors often trace the name of a special person, others leave photos and some leave flowers. “Everyone leaves a piece of their heart ” said one attendee who preferred not to give her name.

911 Responders Remembered Park is located at Smithtown Blvd. and Gibbs Pond Rd, Nesconset.