Long Beach's shifting winds on Equinor project
An illustration of a wind-installation vessel. Equinor, a Norwegian power company, wants to land a transmission cable from a turbine off the shore of Long Beach. Credit: Maersk Supply Service
Daily Point
Headwinds in Long Beach
An observer might get whiplash just from trying to understand the Long Beach City Council’s position on a proposed wind farm off its shore.
The Council has changed its stance no fewer than four times over the last few months, with the latest shift coming Monday, in a communication to Gov. Kathy Hochul. In the latest letter, the Long Beach City Council expressed “firm opposition” to Equinor’s proposed wind farm project, saying it found “both this proposed project and its proposer to be completely irresponsible.”
The July 17 letter, signed by Council President John D. Bendo and City Council members Elizabeth Treston, Roy Lester, Karen McInnis and Tina Posterli, emphasized support for renewable energy more generally, but argued that the Empire Wind 2 project, as the Long Beach effort is known, had too many downsides.
The Long Beach letter came as legislation known as the Planned Offshore Transmission Act awaits Hochul’s signature. Among other things, the bill would allow the city to alienate parkland — in this case the beach itself — to permit the wind farm’s transmission cables to be buried once they come ashore.
The most recent letter didn’t mention that bill directly. But it was enough for State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick or Assemb. Ari Brown, who penned their own letter the day after Long Beach’s, asking Hochul to veto the Planned Offshore Transmission Act in light of the City Council’s latest position.
“Unfortunately, this bill falls far short of being a viable solution; rather it poses a grave threat to the city of Long Beach, Island Park and its surrounding communities,” Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick and Brown wrote. “The inherent recklessness of this bill raises significant concerns, and we firmly believe that it is not the right approach for achieving our clean energy goals.”
But the council’s current position stands in marked contrast to some of its previous correspondence. In March, the council offered a “home rule” message supporting the alienation proposal. Then, the council switched gears and opposed the effort. But by June 19, the council changed its mind again, issuing support for a broader bill that included the alienation, even while choosing not to take a position on the project as a whole.
“We are simply requesting the State give the City of Long Beach providence over what happens to its own beaches,” the June letter said. “We ask that the matter stop being obfuscated and that we be granted the authority requested.”
But the newest letter took a firmer stance expressing outright opposition to the project, saying it would put “high-voltage A/C transmission lines” through “a densely populated residential community, directly impacting thousands of residents.” The council also argued that the “blight of a multi-story substation” in Island Park would diminish the impact of ongoing efforts to improve resiliency and water quality and noted that the project is the only one in New York that “would have a visual impact on the nearby shore communities.”
The latest letter comes as details of the Equinor project are still developed and negotiated, during a process known as Article 7, of which the City of Long Beach is a part. As currently proposed, the transmission lines in the Long Beach proposal will be buried, and the substation, which is still being designed, would link to the existing E.F. Barrett power station, also located in Island Park.
The Long Beach City Council’s biggest complaint in its most recent letter, however, is about Equinor itself.
“Equinor, the project’s proposer, has done a dismal job in meaningfully engaging residents and addressing their concerns with respect to this project,” the letter said. “We see no current scenario where Equinor can become a trusted partner to our south shore communities.”
In an interview with The Point on Wednesday, Equinor’s Susan Lienau, the director of community affairs for Empire Wind 2, pushed back. Lienau noted that Equinor has held five town hall or open house-style meetings in the last year and has held 125 smaller meetings with local stakeholders. She also pointed to Long Beach officials’ broader support of renewable energy in general, suggesting that their only way to oppose Empire Wind 2 is by criticizing the company’s level of engagement.
“I honestly think it’s an easy attack to have if you don’t have a critique of the merits of the project to say we’re not there,” Lienau said. “But I know that we’re out there. I know the extent to which we’re conducting meetings… It takes time to build out and get the word out into the community but we are doing it.”
Hochul still hasn’t called the bill to her desk. But Lienau said she expects the governor to sign it.
“The governor is supportive of renewable energy,” Lienau said. “This project is very much a part of that agenda.”
— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com
Pencil Point
Vote for one
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution / Creators.com/Mike Luckovich
For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons
Reference Point
Decades of district making
The Newsday editorial from July 20, 1960.
Last week, an appellate division panel in Albany ruled that New York State's congressional maps drawn in 2022 by a special master should be redone, reigniting New York’s redistricting chaos.
Turns out, it was a heated topic this time of year 63 years ago as well.
Back on July 20, 1960, Newsday’s editorial board learned that the population of Long Island’s two counties came in at slightly less than 2 million in the latest census.
Acknowledging that New York State was “likely to lose a couple of congressman overall,” the board boasted that thanks to that population growth the “real Long Island” (excluding Queens and Brooklyn) would be awarded additional representatives, potentially even one who would represent Suffolk alone — “twice as good” for LI.
New York ultimately lost two seats in the 1960 census, bringing the state’s total number of representatives down to 41. And as the board foreshadowed, “the political-congressional voice of Nassau-Suffolk” strengthened after the 1960 reapportionment with an additional Suffolk-only seat, giving it a total of five.
Today, Long Island’s population has grown to 2.95 million, but upstate’s population loss has the state down to 26 seats and Long Island only has four. But redistricting off the 2020 census initially moved part of the 3rd District to include parts of Westchester and the Bronx. Now with a new legal challenge to the 2022 maps headed to the state’s top court, this possibility and weakening of LI’s representation is not out of the question again.
The map based on the 1960 census was challenged later in the decade after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1962 ruling establishing the right of federal courts to review state redistricting based on the newly established one-man one-vote criteria. That 1969 case, Wells v. Rockefeller — pressed by the state’s then surging Liberal Party — made its way to the Supreme Court, a scenario not out of the question today as the flames of boundary making continue to burn. The justices back then let the state map stand.
— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com
