LIPA exploring future plans for old nuclear site
Jun 14 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bill Bleyer and Bart Jones Newsday, Melville, N.Y. The Shoreham plant, the $6-billion white elephant that has sat idle since its decommissioning in 1994 amid growing controversy over nuclear power, could again generate electricity. But a non-nuclear power plant was the most voiced option Friday as the Long Island Power Authority convened the first meeting of a new Shoreham Advisory Committee established to find a use for the site, which has sat unused since it was decommissioned in 1994. Over the past 14 years since the plant was mothballed before ever operating commercially, ideas for its use have been floated. Some suggested a ferry terminal for service to Connecticut. Others recommended a non-nuclear energy-generating plant. And there were proponents of demolishing the distinctive dome to create a waterfront park. Because of opposition or inertia, nothing came of the proposals. Suffolk County Legis. Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) said nothing had been done with the plant for 14 years because it was so controversial that no one wanted to touch it. Now Kevin Law, as the head of LIPA, which inherited remnants of the Long Island Lighting Co. after the Shoreham debacle, is trying to unstick the logjam over the site that had seen massive protests and garnered national attention. Law, LIPA's president and chief executive, led a tour of the plant and said he was open to suggestions on what to do with the property. He listed ideas that already have been suggested, including a ferry terminal, a marina with restaurants, boat-building factory, a museum or educational facility. The property is zoned light industrial, so it would have to be rezoned if housing was proposed. But most of the discussion Friday was about a power plant, possibly gas-fired. The only use that isn't an option is another nuclear plant because the statute that created LIPA prohibits that. Law also said leaving the site idle isn't an option because "that would just compound the overall failure of the plant itself." Long Islanders -- as taxpayers and utility customers -- continue to pay off the billions in debt incurred in building and shutting down Shoreham after a three-decade battle. LIPA spokesman Ed Dumas said a deterrent to demolishing the plant would be the cost -- probably several hundred million dollars. No strikingly new ideas came out of the session. Local officials and community leaders including Sid Bail, president of the Wading River Civic Association, said their primary concern was generating tax revenue without causing traffic or other problems. The tour of the facility that never operated at more than 5 percent of its capacity proved an eerie trip into a secret world where time had stood still. A yellowing copy of Newsday dated June 10, 1994, lay on a desk in the plant's dusty control room, and coffee cups sat elsewhere. "It was like the workers got up and left in the middle of their shift," commented Assemb. Marc Alessi (D-Wading River). "It's frozen in time." Opponents of Shoreham, including Suffolk County's government, argued at the time that Long Island could not be successfully evacuated in the event of a leak. But some LIPA engineers who as LILCO employees helped build the plant said Friday that fears of a nuclear meltdown at Shoreham were overblown and the plant should have gone online. Matthew Cordaro, a top LILCO official during the Shoreham battle, said the most logical use of the property was for energy generation, possibly a gas-fired plant. He doubted the community would accept housing and said a marina wasn't practical. Lee Koppelman, who was not on the tour but as head of the Suffolk County Planning Department was in charge of trying to develop a Shoreham emergency evacuation plan, still thinks the best use of the property would be a ferry terminal. Koppelman, now director of the Center for Regional Policy Studies at Stony Brook University, said "it never went anywhere because Connecticut didn't like the idea." He also said the site would be good for a power plant. Irving Like, an environmental attorney at the forefront of the battle against Shoreham, said the best use of the site would be for windmills or "some form of renewable energy technology."
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