FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 29 , 2005
Contact: Barbara LoMoriello, Legislative Aide -- #(631) 854-4500

Suffolk Legislature Urges Cleanup of Northport Power Station

On Tuesday, September 27, the Suffolk County Legislature unanimously approved Legislator Cooper’s resolution calling for repowering or rebuilding of the Northport Power Station, which is the largest oil-fired electric generating station on the East Coast.

The Northport Power Station was built, designed and is operated with equipment and technology dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, and has not been significantly upgraded since. A recently published study of power plants in the Northeast, written by a coalition of environmental groups, found that the Northport power plant released the second highest level of carbon dioxide into the environment. The units at this station, compared to power plants designed and built with state-of-the-art technology, are inefficient and polluting, thereby wasting fuel, damaging the environment, contributing to global warming, and negatively affecting public health.

Rebuilding and/or repowering these units will significantly reduce pollution, decrease fuel usage (mostly from foreign sources), and increase electric-generating capacity. Modernization of these antiquated plants would also increase tax benefits for the County of Suffolk and the Town of Huntington, create jobs, reduce global warming and other harm to the environment, benefit public health, improve reliability of on-Island generation, decrease medical and health costs, and improve productivity due to better public health.

The resolution was supported by many studies such as those from the Citizens Advisory Panel (CAP), the Center for Management Analysis (CW Post), and the united environmental community, including 30 organizations on Long Island represented by the Sustainable Energy Alliance of Long Island (www.seali.org) and Long Island Mid-Suffolk Business Action (www.LIMBA.net).

"The Suffolk County Legislature, representing nearly 1.4 million residents, made a significant statement recognizing that the Northport Power Station, the second highest-polluting power plant in the North East, can be modernized for the benefit of public health, our environment and our economy," said Mark Serotoff, Coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Alliance of Long Island. "It remains for LIPA to accomplish this."

"I am thrilled that my colleagues in the Legislature all recognize the need to repower and upgrade the Northport power plant," said Legislator Cooper. "This facility is outdated, harmful to the health of Suffolk residents and damaging to our environment. I urge LIPA and KeySpan to work together and come up with a concrete plan for action."