Are Romaine and MTA on the same track for a new rail yard? 

Daily Point

Looks like a green signal for MTA project at Lawrence Aviation site

Is the decadelong effort to build a rail yard at the former Lawrence Aviation site in trouble?

As of now, it seems the answer is no. But the answer also seems to depend on who’s talking — and when.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine told The Point Friday that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had canceled a series of future meetings between the MTA and the county — after a year of regularly holding such meetings — and that the MTA was stopping the rail yard project in Port Jefferson Station in its tracks.

"They’re pulling the plug on the project," Romaine said in an interview Friday. "It is a whole host of plans that they are single handedly dismantling. If they kill this, they’ll put us back more than a dozen years. This is not progress. Each one of these projects is a piece that builds a mosaic for Long Island’s future."

Romaine said he spoke to Gov. Kathy Hochul about Lawrence Aviation Friday while she was in Suffolk County. He said he told the governor of his concerns but did not get a definitive response.

However, later Friday, Hochul spokesman Gordon Tepper told The Point that Lawrence Aviation was not dead, after all.

"Nothing has changed," Tepper said. "It was just an internal scheduling conflict. A meeting is forthcoming."

Hours later, multiple county sources with knowledge of the ongoing situation said that Romaine’s conversation with Hochul and The Point’s inquiries led the MTA and the Long Island Rail Road to reaffirm their commitment to the project and to assure Romaine and others that Lawrence Aviation was still a go.

"They’re now not backing away," one source confirmed. "The LIRR and the MTA now say they’re committed to advancing the project."

Added county spokesman Michael Martino: "The county executive is very grateful to the governor for her continued support of this project."

But besides the canceled meetings and broader concerns, Romaine also pointed to the ongoing struggle between the county, the MTA and the state Department of Transportation, which has put up roadblocks to getting a deal finalized due to a greenway trail on the property that DOT controls. DOT wants the ability to maintain that trail in case it ever needs to turn it into an emergency highway path.

Sources told The Point that the reason why some meetings were canceled was because the situation with DOT had been elevated to higher-ups, and that some of those meetings did not involve the county since the difficulty was with state DOT.

Tepper, meanwhile, said the MTA, county, state and DOT are "working towards a resolution" on those issues.

But MTA board member Marc Herbst, who represents Romaine on the board, said he’s not so sure.

"I am concerned," Herbst told The Point. "I want them to work out the details. There has to be a mutual resolution and I see no reason why they can’t come up with one. But I have not gotten an answer. [State DOT] has reservations and they don’t believe there’s an urgent timeline."

In fact, Herbst said, the agreement between the county and the MTA is due to expire at the end of December — a date that was arrived at after the parties agreed to an extension in June.

"We’re focused on getting over the property acquisition hurdles as soon as possible so we can move forward with the county, who we remain in regular contact with, including as recently as Friday," said John McCarthy, the MTA’s chief of policy and external affairs.

Romaine noted that he has worked on the future of the Lawrence Aviation site throughout his time as Brookhaven Town supervisor, and now as county executive, and he’s prepared to continue to fight for the rail yard.

"My goal is to make this happen," Romaine said. "If I have to embarrass or cajole, I’ll do that… We’ve got to build a better transportation system. And I would like to try to do something before I leave to push us in that direction."

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Hello trouble

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Reference Point

Building the case for a greener LI

Over the decades, Newsday’s editorial board has returned time and again to some familiar topics — like traffic, housing, politics, and the Long Island Rail Road. Among the most common was the one featured in the editorial that appeared on Aug. 8, 1960, under the always-appropriate title "Keep Long Island Green!"

The board has always prioritized preservation of the environment, especially in the face of development — the eternal yin-yang of Long Island life.

In the piece from 64 years ago, the board focused on three environmental developments. One was a proposal from then-Suffolk County Executive H. Lee Dennison to acquire lands along rivers like the Nissequogue, Peconic, Carmans and Connetquot, a move the board applauded. As Dennison noted, "Suffolk is becoming rapidly developed. We must preserve these lands whenever possible as green belts, the verdant area fed by the river. We must prevent pollution by commercial organizations and insure that these areas will remain forever natural."

Along similar lines, the board urged caution in building too many apartment buildings. While acknowledging they "do fill a need for single people and older people who no longer want to maintain their own private homes," the board argued that too many apartments "could transform Nassau gradually into another Jackson Heights or Forest Hills …"

"Nassau and Suffolk are still counties with trees and some open space — much of it threatened or rapidly vanishing," the board wrote. "Let us keep Long Island green."

The board also made a pitch for preserving the region’s wetlands. Its argument was avian, based on the importance of "coastal wetlands where waterfowl breed or settle down on their flight south." It praised the Town of Oyster Bay and Suffolk County for steps to slow down "the expansion of roads and the increase in home-building."

"We must resist commercial pressures," the board wrote, "so that the marshes of Long Island will still remain as marvelously unspoiled, a refuge for wildlife in the future as in the past."

Unfortunately, Long Island did not resist those pressures to protect one of its most vulnerable natural assets. Many coastal wetlands were filled in by the very home-building the board hoped to thwart.

Sixty-four years later, we have another reason to lament their disappearance. Wetlands, we know now, are nature’s best defense against the storms that ravage the region — one more reason to keep Long Island green.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com, Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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