Heights Property Owners sign cable deal, awaits PSEG green light
Early advance work to determine the best course for the new cabling took place months ago before PSEG was able to announce the course that will be followed between Shelter Island Heights and Greenport Village.
The Heights Property Owners Corporation has signed an agreement with PSEG-LI to allow proposed cabling to take place between Shelter Island and Greenport. PSEG must now review the document and sign off before it’s official, but Communications Director Jeffrey Weir said he expects the project to get under way before the end of September.
“We have an agreement in principle that the leadership from the Heights have signed and are in the process of submitting to PSEG Long Island,” Mr. Weir said in an email.
“We fully expect to finalize the paperwork very soon, but nothing has been executed.”
At the same time, he predicted that work would begin before the end of the month.
Greenport had executed its agreement with PSEG in April.
If all goes smoothly, the project that will provide Shelter Island with reliable electric service should be completed by mid May, just before the tourist season gets under way on Memorial Day 2018.
The Island had three cables leading from the North Fork and one from the South Fork. The South Fork cable is still intact, but isn’t able to provide service to the entire Island. Two of the North Fork cables are no longer functional and the third is as old as the two that failed, necessitating a solution.
This is the second attempt to replace cabling. In 2013, before PSEG took over management of the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), LIPA used Bortech, a subcontractor, to run a cable between Crescent Beach and Southold, but the effort failed.
All parties have expressed optimism about the current effort being successful.
“We’ve done our part,” Heights Property Owners Corporation General Manager Stella Lagudis said in announcing the signing by her organization Thursday evening. Details of the agreement signed by HPOC aren’t yet public.
The Greenport agreement provides for PSEG to pay the village $30,000 for an easement fee and an $1.3 million as an access fee to allow the cable to run to the Fifth Street area before it connects with a substation in Southold. The utility company also agreed to install an overhead circuit reinforcement from its Southold substation to Silvermere Road, a move officials have said would make electric service in the village more reliable.
In signing the agreement in April, Greenport Mayor George Hubbard said he thought it was “a good deal” for the village.
