Town awaits PSEG plan
Reminders of the summer of 2013 when Bortech undertook a project that failed to provide backup power to Shelter Island. And if there were disruptions at Crescent Beach, Southold residents were more disturbed than Islanders by noise and dirt the project generated.
PSEG is re-examining the possibility of running a conduit containing cables under the water from Southhold Town to provide backup power to Shelter Island.
The future of how to ensure sufficient power on the Island lies with PSEG at the moment, according to Supervisor Jim Dougherty, who said Monday he continues to wait to hear from PSEG representatives.
They, in turn, continue to provide promises of answers, but so far, it’s a waiting game, Mr. Dougherty said.
PSEG was focused on a substation, perhaps located at the former Highway Department barn near the Shelter Island Historical Society. But residents soundly rejected that idea following a field trip in July to Jamesport to visit a substation similar to what was being proposed here.
Too dangerous, too noisy, too much a threat to the environment was how residents characterized that idea. And relocating a substation to land at the Recycling Center would be too expensive, PSEG officials said.
But that last possibility isn’t dead, Mr. Dougherty said.
PSEG spokesman Jeffrey Weir couldn’t be reached for comment, but he told Newsday last week that the utility company remained determined to try to find an agreeable site on the Island for a substation.
What is known is that PSEG workers have been back at the Southold beach area where the original $10 million conduit project conducted by Bortech for the Long Island Power Authority failed in August 2013.
It was so disruptive on the Southold side that LIPA actually paid to relocate some residents who couldn’t use their houses that summer.
Mr. Weir said last week that the possibility of a conduit was only being examined as a back up if no appropriate substation site could be found on Shelter Island.
“My only goal is to provide adequate power” for Islanders, Mr. Dougherty said, refusing to commit to whether he favored a conduit and cabling to a substation.
But Councilman Paul Shepherd told Newsday that while a substation at the Recycling Center remained a consideration, the idea of constructing one at the old highway barn site had been abandoned.
Meanwhile, some Southolders, who suffered through the summer of 2013 when the ill-fated cable project was being constructed, have threatened a lawsuit if the utility company tries to reactivate an underwater solution.
