SUFFFOLK CLOSEUP: PSEG'S Lobbying Effort And LIPA

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Opportunity Lost: Governor Kills Path to Better Electrical Service at Lower Cost” is the headline of an essay by former Long Island Power Authority Trustee Peter J. Gollon in the just-out issue of L.I. Sierra Club News.

Gollon, on the LIPA board from 2016 to 2021, cites the process existing for decades now for LIPA to “outsource its operation,” to have a third-party contractor run the LIPA grid, currently, he notes, “a subsidiary of PSEG, a New Jersey utility.” He adds “LIPA is limited to supervising PSEG, which gets paid a highly profitable fee of at least $80 million annually.”

PSEG, he says, did “a barely adequate job until the August 2020 train wreck of Tropical Storm Isaias, when PSEG lied about its own incompetence being the root cause of the delayed power restoration.”

“Multiple studies found that the current outsourcing structure is flawed and that the interests of any outsourcing company operating the system cannot coincide with those of the utility’s customers.” writes Gollon. The state’s Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority “has reached the same conclusion and drafted legislation to allow LIPA to operate the grid itself, with no outsourcing required. PSEG heavily lobbied Governor [Kathy] Hochul and many state legislators to kill the bill and keep the present structure.”

“Thus, the well-thought-out bill got no traction in the [State] Legislature. Nor with Governor Hochul,” he says, “who insulted Long Islanders by remarking, ‘If I get a bill put on my desk, I will examine it.’ That’s polite for ‘I don’t give a damn.’”

“Stuck with the present model, LIPA CEO Tom Falcone started planning for a new outsourcing contract to begin in 2026, with terms that would ensure better performance,” he relates. “Then,” says Gollon, “Governor Hochul replaced the LIPA Board of Trustees chair and appointed three new [board members]. They seemed to neither know nor care about LIPA’s past troubles with PSEG or fixing them.”

Gollon says, “The new Board Chair Tracy Edwards set such a hostile tone that Falcone and [LIPA] COO Mujib Lodhi resigned; more will follow. Without its most competent staff, nobody will be left to design a contract to attract bidders who could make the most of LIPA’s unique and convoluted structure.”

“PSEG’s massive lobbying succeeded but at the expense of the LIPA ratepayers and top-notch service,” declares Gollon.

“They could continue to get their annual $80 million management fee. A weakened LIPA staff will have a harder time integrating the coming offshore wind generation with LIPA’s grid or adding additional local renewables to meet the renewable energy goals of the [New York’s] Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.”

Gollon is not a lightweight on these issues. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia University in nuclear physics and engaged for years in “radiation safety work” at the U.S. government’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois. He is former chair of the Energy Committee of the L.I. Sierra Club. He is long a Suffolk County resident, living in Huntington for more than four decades. He was appointed to the LIPA board by the speaker of the State Assembly upon the recommendation of then Assemblyman Steve Englebright of Setauket, who has now returned to the Suffolk County Legislature and has been among the most environmentally committed lawmakers ever on state and Suffolk levels.

Gollon’s comments need to be taken most seriously.

In an interview last week, he told me that “I don’t think the governor understands what public power is” and has been swayed by lobbying by Newark, Jersey-based PSEG. In 2011, her predecessor as governor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, arranged for PSEG to run the LIPA grid.

In testimony last year before the Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, Gollon spoke of how “inefficient” the system of a third party running the grid is, “despite the outstanding efforts of LIPA’s CEO and staff to supervise and direct PSEG.” He said this “model for a large municipally owned utility does not exist anywhere else in the other forty-nine states. Nor anywhere else in New York State, either.”

He called for LIPA to run the grid itself. “LIPA staff is perfectly capable of directly running the utility,” testified Gollon. “I believe, and I strongly urge you to conclude, that LIPA should be set free of this unique and uniquely expensive and inefficient structure and be allowed to directly manage its own electrical system for the benefit of us, its ratepayers.”

The commission, co-chaired by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, fully agreed and in its final report called for LIPA to run the grid itself. That, emphasized Thiele, “will save the ratepayers money” and enable “more transparency, more accountability” than the “third-party structure.” The report said cutting out PSEG would provide a saving of $50 million to $80 million a year “by eliminating the fee paid to PSEG” and “allow LIPA’s board of trustees to lower rates or mitigate future rate increases, upgrade grid structure, invest in climate-friendly green initiatives” and “support struggling residents and businesses.” 

PSEG’s contract with LIPA is facing expiration. If that doesn’t happen because of PSEG lobbying—on which it has spent “millions, says Thiele—and LIPA still not allowed to run its own grid itself, that indeed would be “opportunity lost.”

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: Is The End Of Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers Near?

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The Village of Southampton has become the first municipality on Long Island to completely ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. The new law is a model in part for a bill that Huntington Town Councilmen Dave Bennardo and Salvatore Ferro plan to advance with a target a complete ban in Huntington “possibly in 2026,” Ferro said last week. 

Ferro, a Commack resident, said that “between health risks and the well-being of the community and the fact that technology has truly improved in battery options” he and Bennardo, of East Northport, are moving ahead.

In the Village of Southampton, the process that concluded with a total prohibition this month on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers began, said its deputy mayor, Gina Arresta, when “I first became a village trustee four years ago” and there was a “push from residents” for a ban. 

A task force was put together that she led which consisted of people from “all sides—contractors, landscapers, residents, members of the village’s Environment Committee. You have to bring people together.” 

And the task force “came to a general consensus,” said Arresta.

The Village of Southampton had restrictions on when the devices could be used—as does the Town of Huntington. There were “pros and cons” raised on the task force regarding a complete ban, she said last week. There were issues about “getting equipment” and substitutes for the gas-powered machines. Also, “some of the technology” for alternatives “was not there yet.”

So, the plan was for a phase out with a target date for a total ban of 2024.

As of May 16, the total Southampton Village ban was in effect.

The reaction from folks from Southampton Village who have contacted her, said Arresta, has been “very good…people are very happy.” She’s received comments including “it’s the best thing to do.” 

“We applaud the Village of Southampton,” said Bonnie Sager of Huntington, an early champion on Long Island—and now also nationally—for a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers. 

“It’s a wonderful step for the health of people of the village and for the workers who are most impacted bearing the burden of using this highly polluting and noisy equipment,” said Sager last week. “It will improve the quality of life and reduce air pollution.” 

“Gas leaf blowers are by and large the dirtiest and most polluting piece of equipment still in legal use,” she said. “For landscape workers their noise can be deafening. For neighbors they often are a constant source of annoyance and disruption.”

“Landscape workers are often low wage non-English speaking, hard workers who are sacrificing future health in order to keep customers’ lawns pristine. They may not have generous health insurance, if any, and most likely have no idea of the health hazards they are exposing themselves to,” said Sager. “Breathing toxic emissions and fine particulate matter for hours a day can cause severe health issues ranging from cancer, heart disease, asthma and COPD.”

Sager is co-founder of Huntington Calm and also a new national group, the Quiet Clean Alliance. It’s based on “there being strength in numbers,” said Sager, and formed by leaders of Quiet GA from Atlanta, Georgia and QCPDX from Portland, Oregon and herself. Already there are nearly 50 “member organizations” from all over the U.S.

Meanwhile, there “are viable alternatives” to gas-powered leaf blowers, said Sager. The cost of battery-powered electric leaf blowers “has come down” and the technology improved. 

 “They produce no emissions, don’t use fossil fuels and emit far less noise,” said Sager. She added that people “may also consider leaving some leaves and beneficial grass clippings. They help our pollinators and improve soil structure.”

A company specializing in battery-powered leaf blowers is Kress Commercial which on its website says its equipment is “designed for landscaping companies and municipalities seeking to integrate sustainable practices into their operations.”

“Air and noise pollution hurts everyone,” said Sager, “especially our children, our elderly and the worker. Cleaner air, less stress and hearing loss from noise combined with safer working conditions is a win for everyone.”

On Long Island, “some villages and towns have restrictions” on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers, she said. As for other complete bans on use in the U.S., Sager cited the Village of Larchmont in Westchester County; Washington, D.C.; Montgomery County, Maryland; and Montclair and Maplewood, New Jersey. In addition to bans by several municipalities in California on use, the state at the beginning of this year started prohibiting statewide the sale of gas-powered leaf blowers.  

The Quiet Clean Alliance declares on its website (http://quietcleanallianace.org) that it is “a network of independent campaigns across the U.S. working to eliminate gas leaf blowers from our communities due to their considerable health and environmental harms. Our goal is to accelerate the shift away from gas leaf blowers and other gas-powered landscape equipment at local, state, and national levels.” 

It says that on a local level, “We work cooperatively to accelerate the shift off gas leaf blowers…” In states, “We track active bills in state legislatures that support the reduction or elimination of gas-powered landscape equipment. Members jointly support and defend policy efforts…” And on the national level, “We advocate for action by Congress and federal agencies to eliminate gas leaf blowers and other gas-powered landscape equipment and to restore the Federal Noise Control Office” (which was eliminated during the Reagan administration). 

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: Sixty Years Ago In New York

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Sixty years ago, the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair opened. “Like a giant playground,” was the headline last month in Newsday in a five-page spread, the cover story of its “LI Life” section, based on a quote from a fair-goer describing it.

I was there on opening day to do a story about members of the Suffolk County chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality joining in a major protest about discrimination in hiring at the fair. My story was ultimately headlined: “Jail Pavilion for Suffolk CORE.” For it was not a “playground” but more like a battleground that day.

Because of the article I was fired from my first reporting job by the company headed by entrepreneurs from New York City who had come to Suffolk County to develop a newspaper-radio-TV media empire here and acquired the newspaper that I had worked at for two years. As Wilson Stringer, the vice president of Sunrise Press, told me the day after my article appeared: “Mr. Moses called and is very upset with you. You’re fired.”

The “Mr. Moses” was New York public works czar Robert Moses who was president of the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. I spent 1962 and 1963 on my first “big story” as a journalist, challenging Moses’s plan to build a four-lane highway the length of Fire Island. I pointed to an alternative, a Fire Island National Seashore that would preserve the exquisite nature and 17 roadless communities on this barrier beach. The succession of articles I wrote began when I started at the Babylon Town Leader.

As Robert Caro of East Hampton, a former Newsday reporter, related in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Moses, “The Power Broker,” Moses had the press of the New York Metropolitan Area in his pocket.

But not the Babylon Town Leader. It regularly challenged projects of Moses, who lived in Babylon. However, in January 1964 Sunrise Press bought The Leader and when I went to cover the protest at his World’s Fair, the change of ownership left me with no protection from him. 

At The Leader, I shone a spotlight on the Fire Island highway issue but also on the African-American communities in Babylon Town and civil rights struggles in Suffolk in the 1960s, many of them in which people from those communities were involved.

On April 22, 1964, World’s Fair opening day, I jumped into the back seat of the car of Irwin and Delores Quintyne of North Amityville. (Irwin, a World War II Navy veteran, and Delores, had originally sought to live in Levittown, but because Levittown wouldn’t allow Blacks to purchase homes, the Quintynes settled in North Amityville in Babylon Town.) Delores was chair of the Suffolk chapter of CORE on that opening day. Irwin succeeded her as chair in 1967 and remained so for two decades. Both were deeply involved in the civil rights struggles in Suffolk County throughout their lives.

When they and other CORE people—including CORE co-founder and national director James Farmer—arrived at the World’s Fair site, their signs were placed under clothing. They walked through the gates, unfolded the signs and demonstrated. 

Many of the 3,000 Pinkerton private security firm employees who were World’s Fair guards descended on them. And it wasn’t like being in Queens but more like a scene in Mississippi at that time. My story about it and photos were published in The Leader and other Sunrise Press newspapers.

To hear directly from Delores (she died in 2022) about her arrest at it, the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook has an interview online in which she begins by telling of how “they dragged me from the back of my coat…” It’s posted with a heading: “Remembering Long Island’s Civil Rights Movement” at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4517952118232773 

Farmer, considered one of the top leaders in the civil rights struggle in the United States in the 1960s, was also arrested—as were hundreds of others. 

A few months later, on September 11, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating the Fire Island National Seashore. It was the successful conclusion of, as Suffolk County Community College Professor Christopher Verga titled his book, Saving Fire Island from Robert Moses: The Fight for a National Seashore. But with the change of ownership at The Leader, Moses “got me” after my World’s Fair opening day story. I placed ads starting: “Reporter fired because of Robert Moses.” Subsequently I was hired as a reporter at the daily Long Island Press. 

Thereafter, Sunrise Press sold off its media in Suffolk County and dissolved. 

More on racism and Moses: Caro in The Power Broker relates how overpasses on Southern State and Northern State Parkways—highways constructed by Moses—were built low to prevent buses carrying people of color from New York City getting through to his Jones Beach State Park. Caro, who interviewed Moses at length, has described him as “the most racist human being I have ever really encountered.” And New York State Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell of Manhattan (raised in Commack and the brother of actress, comedian and author Rosie O’Donnell) in 2019 introduced legislation to change the name of Robert Moses State Park because of the racial bias of Moses citing, among other things, the overpass issue. His office told me last week that the measure is still “in committee,” the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee. 

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: Suffolk County Receives "F" For Ozone Pollution

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

How can Suffolk County—this county jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean and far from the urban parts of the New York Metropolitan Area— receive again a failing grade for pollution from ozone in a report released last month by the American Lung Association.

The reason we are hit with ozone is because it blows here in the wind from the New York Metro Area, and the Long Island Sound is also a factor. 

“If you live in Suffolk County, the air you breathe may put your health at risk,” declares the ALA’s annual “State of Your Air 2024” report in its pages about Suffolk County. You can view the report at https://www.lung.org/research/sota 

There’s an online provision on its first page to learn about details about the “State of Your Air” by clicking on the “Select a Location” button and inputting your zip code.

Suffolk has been given an “F” by the ALA for ozone pollution for years.

Most of New York City also scored poorly receiving D’s. Queens, like Suffolk, got an F.

With all the problems nationally and internationally, who needs this!

Providing an explanation of our situation is NESCAUM which stands for Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. It describes itself as a “a coalition of state air agencies [that] promotes regional cooperation and action by its member states in support of effective programs to reduce the adverse public health and environmental impacts of air pollution and climate change.”

In an online posting headed “Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study,” NESCAUM says: “A unique feature of this chronic ozone problem is pollution transported in a northeast direction out of NYC [New York City] over Long Island Sound. The relatively cool waters of Long Island Sound confine the pollutants in a shallow and stable marine boundary layer. Afternoon heating over coastal land creates a sea breeze that carries the air pollution…”

Suffolk County in the 2020 to 2022 period covered in the ALA report, went beyond the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standard for ozone—70 parts per billion—for 25 days. For 24 of those days, it reached 71 to 88 parts per billion here. And on one day the ozone level in Suffolk was between 86 and 105 parts per billion. 

As Newsday in its article about the ALA report noted about Suffolk and its record, “No other New York county in the report has as many high ozone days.”

A four-page statement—titled “Ozone and Health”—from the New York State Department of Health online begins: “Ground-level ozone is the main ingredient in smog. Breathing in unhealthy levels of ozone can increase the risk of health problems like coughing, breathing difficulty, and lung damage.”

It further explains: “Ozone pollution forms in sunlight usually on hot summer days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react to sunlight. These pollutants come from sources such as vehicles, industries…”

Under a heading, “When Outdoor Air is Unhealthy,” the Department of Health says people should: “Spend more time indoors. This is especially important for at-risk groups (‘sensitive groups’) such as children and teenagers, older adults, people with lung disease like asthma, and those who exercise or work outdoors; When it’s too hot inside, cool off with air conditioning. Find a place to get cool; People who must work outdoors should do so in the morning when levels are usually lower and take frequent breaks; Schools, child and adult care facilities, employers and activities programs should plan for more indoor activities or schedule outdoor activities in the morning when ozone levels are lower; People with health symptoms should contact their health care provider; Get the latest air quality conditions by visiting DEC’s [the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s] air quality forecast website or airnow.gov.”

The Department of Health says: “New York State alerts the public when ozone levels are expected to be unhealthy. An Air Quality Alert is issued the day before or the same day for the region of the state that is affected. These alerts are often broadcast on the news or weather stations.” 

The American Lung Association is seeking action to deal with the cause of the problem through its Lung Action Network. “Stronger Ozone Limits Would Improve the State of the Air” says a posting about this made along with issuance of its report.

Its report found that in the nation “too many people are living with unhealthy levels of air pollution.” The report “shows that 131 million people (nearly 40% of the U.S. population) live in an area with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution, or smog. There are national limits on how much ozone can be in the air—but those limits are outdated.”

A “Letter to Administrator Regan” is offered for folks to send to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, that starts: “I urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update the current, inadequate National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. EPA has recently taken several critical steps to reduce air pollution and address climate change, including stronger National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter, tighter emissions standards for cars and trucks…Stronger ozone standards, however, are missing from this list of life-saving measures. The science is clear: stronger ozone standards are urgently needed.”

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: PSEG Has A History

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

I first got to learn about PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group) in the early 1970s driving down Dune Road in the Hamptons and there, next to Hot Dog Beach, was a weather station with various devices. It was surrounded by a chain link fence with a sign saying U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and Brookhaven National Laboratory on it.

I called BNL and was told by its PR office that the station was set up because “this company from New Jersey”—PSEG—planned to construct a string of “floating nuclear power plants” in the Atlantic starting off the coast of southern New Jersey and extending to 20 miles off the southern coast of Long Island.

I was told the station monitored how, in the event of an accident at one of the plants, a radioactive cloud might move. A 75-foot landing craft was on loan from the Navy and also aircraft and a trawler were being used. Clouds of smoke were discharged, and the PR representative said it was determined that because of prevailing winds coming here from the southwest, the smoke mainly floated to Long Island.  

Upon finding I was working on this, Dave Starr, editor of the Long Island Press and national editor of the Newhouse newspaper chain, telephoned and said I should “play down” the story. “I don’t want to get people upset,” said Starr. This was among my earliest experiences in finding out how nuclear issues are hot media potatoes.

My article was published, but not on Page One as most of my articles as an investigative reporter began, but inside The Press. The episode was featured in a 1980 book—I started writing it the day of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in 1979—titled “Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power.” It is in a chapter “How We Got So Far” that includes details about media treatment of nuclear issues.

Also, in the book is how the floating nuclear power plant scheme began. In PSEG literature it was credited to Richard Eckert, a PSEG vice president, who, it said, while taking a shower in 1969 thought the sea could supply the huge amounts of water nuclear power plants need as coolant. PSEG got Westinghouse to agree to build them. Westinghouse partnered with Tenneco in a company called Offshore Power Systems and constructed a massive facility on Blount Island off Jacksonville, Florida. The plants were to be towed up the Atlantic into position.

The book devotes several pages to an Offshore Power Systems sales brochure and also the announcement of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (which replaced the AEC in 1974) that it was issuing a “manufacturing license” for the floating nuclear power plants. However, the scheme went belly-up with Offshore Power Systems losing $180 million.

Jump to 2012. Then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo brought in Newark-based PSEG as the contractor to run Long Island’s electric grid for the Long Island Power Authority. That came after major failures of LIPA’s then contractor, London, England-based National Grid, when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012 and most LIPA customers were left without electricity. Then when Hurricane Isaiah struck in 2020, with PSEG as LIPA’s contractor, more than half of LIPA customers lost power, too, many for as long as a week.

 A Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, a bipartisan eight-member panel co-chaired by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele of Sag Harbor, concluded last year after an extensive investigation and many public hearings, that LIPA should operate the electric system on Long Island itself and not contract out the work—the original vision when LIPA was created in the 1980s. But despite strong support for this in the State Assembly and its passage of legislation facilitating it, Thiele has just said that action “has stalled” because of “the failure of any member of the State Senate” to introduce a needed companion bill and “the silence” of New York Governor Kathy Hochul. 

This stall, said Thiele, has come amid intense lobbying of state officials by PSEG to continue its contract to operate the electric grid for LIPA. Said Thiele: “PSEG has been spending millions of dollars on lobbying.”

LIPA was created to block the Shoreham nuclear power plant and prevent the construction of six to ten more nuclear power plants the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company sought to build in Suffolk County, and instead to focus on green energy. 

PSEG didn’t get anywhere with its floating nuclear power plant scheme, but it is the major nuclear utility in New Jersey. It operates the Salem 1 and 2 and Hope Creek nuclear plants. 

“I don’t hold PSEG in high regard,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, who for years has been battling PSEG on nuclear and environmental issues. Kills of billions of fish annually by the Salem plants has been a major issue. She told me last week: “I think PSEG is a purely profit-making venture that throws money at government entities and government officials and also tries to manipulate through messaging, claiming it is pro-environment.”

Van Rossum is the woman behind the Green Amendment, an initiative to have states and the federal government enact constitutional amendments declaring that “each person shall have the right to clean air and water and a healthful environment.” She was in Suffolk last year giving the keynote address at the Docs Equinox celebration in Southampton honoring Earth Day. With her help and Assemblyman Steve Englebright of Setauket a prime sponsor, a Green Amendment for New York State was approved by 70 percent of voters in a 2021 referendum and is now part of the state’s Constitution. 

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.