New undersea electric cable considered for Shelter Island
A new underwater transmission cable to Shelter Island could cost as much as $30 million and be in operation by the end of 2016, pending current negotiations, according to PSEG Long Island.
The plan, which is being negotiated with Greenport Village and a homeowners group on Shelter Island, would shift the work about 2 miles east from where LIPA had originally planned it in 2013. The project is needed to address a power bottleneck onto the island between Long Island's North and South forks, particularly in the peak summer months. PSEG has been dealing with it by stationing mobile generators there for the past two summers.
LIPA's previous grid manager, National Grid, and an outside contractor had attempted to lay an underwater cable in a failed $10 million plan that ultimately had to be scrapped after a drill head broke more than 100 feet beneath the sea floor between Southold and Shelter Island. Residents who live near that project had complained of noise, loss of a beach and debris after the project was delayed for months. Southold residents and their supervisor, Scott Russell, had vowed to fight any PSEG effort to restart that project in its old location.
Reception to the new plan in Greenport appeared less contentious. Greenport Village clerk Sylvia Lazzari Pirillo said talks were going "smoothly" but declined to be more specific. Herb Schmidt, a resident who lives near the planned cable site in Greenport, said he had no problem with it.
"Not at all," he said, walking his dog at a small beach near the site recently. "What you have here is a dead end."
PSEG took over the cable project in 2014 and immediately began looking for alternatives to the failed site. One included building a new substation on Shelter Island, but residents there rejected the idea, saying the "industrial" nature of the facility wasn't part of the island's zoning.
PSEG Long Island president Dave Daly said the company is in talks with Greenport Village officials and members of the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corp. to finalize details of the new project.
"We're hopeful that we're on a path to a solution," Daly said.
He said Greenport recently submitted a proposal containing "some issues they'd like dealt with" on its end of the cable, which would emerge at the south end of Fifth Street in the village. Daly said the issues were technical and cost related.
In early December, PSEG will meet with the Shelter Island Heights group to discuss aspects of the transmission line from the island's perspective. Shelter Island Heights is a historic hamlet on the north side, directly across the Peconic Bay from Greenport.
If all goes as planned, Daly said PSEG would start work sometime in the fall of 2016 and work for two to three months to complete the project, which would be the third cable to the island.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
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