Saga behind the Shoreham nuclear plant retold
Jun 13 -
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Mark Harrington Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
>
> Thirty years ago this month, more than 15,000 people converged on
> Wading River on a rain-soaked Sunday to protest what was to be Long
> Island's first nuclear power plant under construction on the shores of
> Long Island Sound. With more than a billion dollars already spent on
> the nearby Shoreham plant, their efforts to stop the plant from ever
> operating appeared to be a long shot at best.
>
> But within 10 years of this day of mass protests, just that
> happened:
> Shareholders of the Long Island Lighting Co., the plant's owners,
> agreed to a plan to sell the Shoreham plant to New York State for $1,
> in exchange for 10 years of rate increases. Within a decade of that
> decision, which was hailed by anti-nuclear power advocates across the
> region, Long Islanders assumed a staggering $4 billion in
> Shoreham-related debt when the Long Island Power Authority purchased
> the regional electric system.
>
> The saga of how grass-roots organizing pushed Suffolk County
> legislators to oppose an all-but-completed plant with a multibillion-
> dollar price tag; how an eloquent governor, Mario Cuomo, warmed to
> their cause, and how other local and state officials came to call for
> the plant's closure, is the stuff of local political lore and history
> -- and today, some measure of second-guessing.
>
> What follows is an oral history as told by a number of key
> insiders who played roles in the effort to shutter a fully licensed
> plant whose costs had soared from an early estimate of $65 million to
> $5.2 billion.
> Some of
> them are telling their stories for the first time.
>
> The legacy of this closure is by no means a closed book on Long
> Island. Today, $16 of every $100 paid in Long Islanders' LIPA bills
> goes to debt service tied directly to Shoreham. And even with Shoreham
> turned off for good -- it is now but a shell sitting on a piece of
> prime waterfront property, a legacy of the intersection of public
> policy and mass protests -- the nuclear issue has resurfaced in the
> push for "cleaner" energy.
>
> Many nuclear power supporters cite the example of France, which
> meets nearly all of its electrical needs with nuclear power, as the
> way America must go in the future. Others say the plant's closure
> costs are too onerous for a region now saddled with some of the
> highest property taxes in the nation.
>
> Here are the stories of those involved in the plant's life and
> death:
>
> Feb. 22, 1965
>
> LILCO announces plans to build a 540-megawatt nuclear power plant
> at Shoreham. A decision is later made to enlarge the plant to 820
> megawatts.
>
> "The thinking was that if we enlarged it . . . there would be
> economies of scale and it would be a cheaper plant. . . . That
> introduced about a two-year delay in moving forward with the
> construction permit proceedings. That delay enabled the opposition to
> the plant to get organized and also to develop."
>
> - Matthew Cordaro, Long Island University professor and a former
> LILCO executive vice president
>
> Oct. 9, 1967
>
> Before breaking ground, LILCO discloses plans for a second
> nuclear plant at Lloyd Harbor. The first opposition to nuclear power
> on Long Island coalesces in the Lloyd Harbor home of Ann and William
> Carl (both died in
> 2008) and their Lloyd Harbor Study Group.
>
> "LILCO originally was going to build in Lloyd Harbor. That's when
> Ann Carl and her husband became involved. But when they finally
> decided to abandon Lloyd Harbor and build in Shoreham, she felt as a
> matter of principle they couldn't abandon it now because otherwise it
> would look like just a backyard issue."
>
> - Irving Like, Lloyd Harbor Study Group lawyer
>
> May 15, 1968
>
> LILCO applies to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for a Shoreham
> construction permit, opening the door to public hearings. Safety and
> related issues now come to the forefront.
>
> "We raised the evacuation issue. LILCO and the Atomic Energy
> Commission pooh-pooh-ed it and said we don't get into it at this
> stage, you can raise it at the operating license stage. That was a
> blunder."
>
> - Irving Like
>
> Aug. 12, 1978
>
> Forty protesters are arrested at the first anti-Shoreham
> demonstration. That year, Gov. Hugh Carey's administration releases an
> energy master plan.
>
> "The plan we wrote in 1978 said that the state would not
> authorize any additional nuclear power plants unless and until the
> nuclear waste cycle was taken into hand, which it wasn't then and 30
> years later is still not. But we did say that Shoreham, because it was
> thought to be well along, should be allowed to be completed. Over the
> next year or two it became clear that that wasn't going to happen."
>
> - James Larocca, public service commissioner, former state energy
> commissioner and former LIPA chairman
>
> March 28, 1979
>
> The Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania reports an
> accident, raising fears of a disaster that could impact the Northeast.
>
> "I was going to grad school at Columbia and minding my own
> business commuting. Then Three Mile Island happened and it concerned
> me. . . . I was concerned that the decisions being made around
> Shoreham to build the plant really left out local government."
>
> - Nora Bredes, University of Rochester professor, former Suffolk
> legislator and former director of the Shoreham Opponents Coalition
>
> "Three Mile Island came along and it was sort of a public-
> relations nightmare for the nuclear industry, and, in all frankness,
> the information was distorted by the media and Hollywood."
>
> - William Catacosinos, former LILCO chief
>
> "We visited Three Mile Island. We visited it as a legislature.
> We took
> a bus down, and we were shocked about some things that were never
> publicized substantially, such as the missing iodine filters that were
> in the stacks.
> That's how you measure the actual release of nuclear contamination
> into the atmosphere. They were just not accounted for."
>
> - Gregory Blass, former Suffolk legislator, now chief of
> Suffolk's Department of Social Services
>
> June 3, 1979
>
> More than 15,000 demonstrate against Shoreham near the plant in
> Wading River; 571 are arrested.
>
> "We were arrested and then taken over to one of LILCO's
> warehouses, and the first thing I noticed was that some people were
> already out of their handcuffs, and there were bumper stickers and
> posters all over the walls.
> And it was a beautiful feeling to see that the demonstrators had
> already claimed the space."
>
> - Peter Maniscalco, anti-Shoreham activist
>
> "So I went to the rally and after it there was a sense of, 'What
> do we do next?' I was one of those who said, 'Demonstrations are fine,
> but if we want to make a difference we have to go to the level of
> government that will be most sympathetic, Suffolk County.' "- Nora
> Bredes
>
> Nov. 3, 1980
>
> The Nuclear Regulatory Commission implements a rule mandating
> that nuclear plants have emergency evacuation plans formulated with
> state and local governments.
>
> "Looking back, the death knell began to ring for Shoreham when
> the Nuclear Regulatory Commission created a fatal loophole in its
> process, requiring that off-site emergency evacuation plans had to be
> approved by FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], and FEMA
> insisted that all such plans have the support of local government.
> This seems like a reasonable requirement, but it shifted control of
> the fate of the plant from the federal government to Suffolk County."
>
> - John Marburger, former George W. Bush administration science
> adviser and Stony Brook University president who in 1980 headed Gov.
> Cuomo's Shoreham study group
>
> Dec. 8, 1981
>
> Suffolk Legislature walks away from a settlement with LILCO that
> would have approved an evacuation plan in exchange for a
> county-appointed board to oversee aspects of the plant and issues such
> as evacuation.
>
> "That was during the transition period between the beginning of
> the real intense opposition that started to crystallize between Three
> Mile Island and 1983, when County Executive Peter Fox Cohalan threw
> his weight behind the opposition. During that window of opportunity,
> LILCO did a smart thing by breaking the logjam and finding a middle
> ground. But there was no real elected official that was out front
> supporting the evacuation plan and LILCO, so the proposal fell by the
> wayside. LILCO was out-organized by activists who had greater passion
> and organizing skills than those in favor of the plant."
>
> - Paul Sabatino II, former chief counsel and deputy county
> executive, Suffolk County
>
> Feb. 17, 1982
>
> Suffolk Legislature concludes there's no safe way to evacuate
> Shoreham, and Gov. Mario Cuomo weighs in publicly.
>
> "That was when we had an official task, an official role in
> examining and deciding the feasibility of evacuating the area in the
> event of a mishap at Shoreham. And that was an extensive process and
> of course the decision was, there could be no evacuation. You couldn't
> rely upon an emergency transit system whose drivers and coordinators
> would be concerned about the safety of their own families."
>
> - Gregory Blass
>
> "I knew all about Long Island and I knew you couldn't get home
> from the beach on a Saturday or a Sunday without great difficulty, and
> what occurred to me is, what happens if, God forbid, there's an
> episode [at the plant] and people have to run out of the area?"
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> May 1983
>
> Cuomo appoints Stony Brook University president John Marburger to
> head a commission to study Shoreham.
>
> "First of all, I don't think the study influenced Gov. Cuomo's
> decision very much. I think he had pretty much decided what he was
> going to do when he set up the commission in the first place. It seems
> to have been a tactic to gain time."
>
> - John Marburger
>
> Aug. 23, 1983
>
> Plant flaws, documented in a Newsday series in 1981 and by
> journalist Karl Grossman -- a former Long Island Press reporter and
> author of "Power Crazy," a book about the Shoreham fiasco -- become
> fodder for plant opponents.
>
> "A major component of a large diesel-powered generator necessary
> to provide backup cooling for the reactor in the event of a power
> failure was found to have a serious fracture. This was one of a long
> sequence of design and construction problems that emerged over time
> and were highly publicized, undermining the credibility of assertions
> by the utility that the plant was well designed and well constructed."
>
> - John Marburger
>
> Jan. 21, 1984
>
> LILCO announces construction of Shoreham is complete, at a cost
> of $4 billion. It's 11 years late and $3.35 billion over budget.
>
> "I don't remember anyone discussing how does it work
> economically. The economics, the costs, were a joke. The thing has
> become so expensive and the ratepayers are going to have to pay for
> it."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> "I think the thinking of the top management at that time, that
> was from their experience with major projects, and certainly this
> project costing as much as it did, that in no way down the road would
> this plant be drastically delayed or even abandoned because of . . .
> the magnitude of the venture. Really, at all levels of management, no
> one seriously thought that the project would not ultimately be
> licensed and operate, in a relatively short period of time."
>
> - Matthew Cordaro
>
> Jan. 30, 1984
>
> LILCO board member William Catacosinos is appointed chief
> executive of the company.
>
> "When I got on the board and looked at the financials, I said,
> 'This is a bankrupt company. I mean, how does it keep functioning?' "
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> March 6, 1984
>
> Catacosinos begins all-out effort to avoid bankruptcy,
> negotiating with banks, informing the Federal Reserve and slicing
> 1,000 jobs and dividends, as well as instituting pay cuts.
>
> "I went to the Federal Reserve in New York, and I went to
> Washington.
> I said, 'These are the options open to us: We may file for
> bankruptcy.' "
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> May 30, 1985
>
> Suffolk County Executive Peter Fox Cohalan, a plant critic, ends
> his opposition. His change of mind evokes howls of criticism of him
> from plant opponents.
>
> "I think I first met him [Catacosinos] at a party that was
> arranged by Bob Gardiner [Robert David Lion Gardiner, heir of
> Gardiner's Island] at Bob's mansion in East Hampton, where we got
> together over dinner and with a few mutual observers to discuss what
> could be done. And I said to him, 'You've got me over a barrel in
> withholding $131 million [in county taxes].'
> I said it was a very smart move and therefore you've got my attention.
> But I can't guarantee that my change of position will bring about the
> county [legislature] changing its position also. . . . I said, I'll
> make the pragmatic decision to change my decision to get the money."
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan, now a state Supreme Court justice
>
> July 7, 1985
>
> Shoreham plant begins operating at 5 percent of power after
> receiving a license to do so the prior February.
>
> "Eventually, we went to 5 percent power and everybody said,
> 'Don't you dare contaminate that plant! Don't you dare turn it on!'
> [But] we have a responsibility. That was the track we were on. . . .
> We had to move forward with that."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Sept. 27, 1985
>
> Hurricane Gloria hits Long Island, knocking out power to hundreds
> of thousands of LILCO customers for 10 days. Catacosinos, celebrating
> his 30th wedding anniversary in Italy, eventually cuts short the trip
> after a public outcry about his being away from Long Island, leaving
> his wife behind.
>
> "Hurricane Gloria did Shoreham in, without question. . . .
> People were
> so angry at the way LILCO handled it. People lost confidence in LILCO
> and that was the end of Shoreham."
>
> - Richard Kessel, former state consumer protection board chairman
> and former LIPA chairman and chief executive (once an anti-Shoreham
> activist)
>
> "He [Catacosinos] called me up [after that] and said, 'This is
> jinxed.
> It's jinxed.' I said, 'You're right. It is jinxed.' "
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan
>
> February 1986
>
> The Federal Emergency Management Agency issues a report saying it
> can't give an assurance that "the public health and safety can be
> protected," in the event of an accident at Shoreham.
>
> "I remember riding with the FEMA general counsel [on a mock
> evacuation drill], and we were going from site to site, the
> decontamination of people, the press area, and getting from site to
> site took us so long. And I said, 'What's going to happen when there's
> an accident and all hell breaks loose?
> I'm not putting my name on the report.' "
>
> - Huntington Supervisor Frank Petrone, then regional FEMA
> director, who was ordered to resign a week later by then-FEMA director
> Julius Becton
>
> April 28, 1986
>
> Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine causes mass evacuation
> after a fire, further raising fears about the safety of nuclear power.
>
> "I said to my people, 'All we need now is a major nuclear event
> to happen somewhere in the world.' And then Chernobyl came along and
> here we go again."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> July 3, 1986
>
> The Long Island Power Authority is born by an act of the State
> Legislature.
>
> March 3, 1987
>
> Suffolk sues LILCO under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
> Organizations statute, saying the company schemed to overcharge
> ratepayers for inflated Shoreham costs.
>
> April 4, 1987
>
> Even as it negotiates mothballing Shoreham, LILCO asks the
> Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 25 percent operational license for
> Shoreham.
> LILCO eventually backs away from this request.
>
> "I met with [Assembly leader] Stanley Fink. He said, 'Listen.
> This is
> a utility. You have to be sure that you and the governor stand
> together jointly to say you both agree to do this. If you don't you're
> stuck.' I said, 'What does that mean?' He said, 'You're not going to
> recover your investment. . . . You can spend whatever you want on a
> power plant, but until that plant is used and useful, you can't
> recover your investment through rate increases.' The $3 billion or $4
> billion we've got invested gets wiped out. We notified the state we
> could not enter this mothball scenario."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Oct. 29, 1987
>
> The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows LILCO to sidestep
> Suffolk's evacuation-plan authority by letting a LILCO evacuation plan
> serve in its place.
>
> Nov. 5, 1987
>
> The state Public Service Commission denies a LILCO rate-hike
> request after years of allowing Shoreham to proceed based on an
> expectation of future operating revenue.
>
> "The biggest mistake was for the PSC to have allowed LILCO to
> charge its ratepayers for the construction costs at the time. . . . If
> they had once said to LILCO, 'You can't have rate recovery for
> construction costs,'
> the plant would have died." -- Richard Kessel
>
> Dec. 18, 1987
>
> Talks between the state and LILCO resume.
>
> May 3, 1988
>
> LIPA, Cuomo and LILCO announce an agreement for LIPA to buy the
> Shoreham plant for $1, but the deal stalls after the State Legislature
> fails to endorse it.
>
> "I could never get the legislature to deal with the issue. I
> couldn't get them to condemn it, I couldn't get them to do a study of
> it. The local legislature did, but not the state."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> Feb. 28, 1989
>
> Cuomo instead turns to the New York Power Authority and the PSC
> to be the bodies whose boards must ratify a new agreement, which was
> reached under a midnight deadline. It provides LILCO with 10 years of
> rate increases, while LIPA pays $1 for Shoreham. LIPA oversees the
> decommissioning.
>
> "Vince Tese [Cuomo's director of economic development] was eating
> at Le Cirque. It was 9:30 or 10 o'clock and I had to find Vince Tese,
> go into the restaurant, get him out and into my car. . . . Here you
> are talking about the end of Shoreham happening not in a room where
> everybody's sitting down and talking but in a car in front of Le
> Cirque in Manhattan."
>
> - Richard Kessel
>
> June 29, 1989
>
> LILCO's board officially approves the LIPA agreement, putting a
> temporary end to the saga and preventing a wipeout of the value of
> LILCO stock.
>
> "In retrospect, you can take two points of view: A selfish point
> of view, which is, we go into bankruptcy, we wipe out shareholders,
> there's not equity, it's gone. We wipe out all our contracts. The
> banks are done. We negotiate with bondholders at cents on the dollar.
> Would I have gone to bankruptcy in retrospect? No. It would have hurt
> too many people."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Aug. 15, 1989
>
> "What was really the issue in the summer 1989 meeting was whether
> or not the federal government was able to impede the settlement when
> in fact they couldn't. All they did was add to the cost." -- Gerald C.
> Crotty,
>
> former New York secretary of State, and counsel to Gov. Cuomo,
> who attended the meeting.
>
> Today, even some environmentalists in the United States are
> arguing that nuclear power must be part of the country's efforts to
> produce cleaner energy and reduce the dependence on foreign oil
> supplies. On Long Island, many are pushing offshore wind farms as a
> partial solution. Many look back at the Shoreham plant's closure and
> see it as grass-roots democracy in action; others see it is as
> political demagoguery and pandering run amok, with the result being
> Long Islanders' saddled with billions in debt.
>
> One thing is certain: Shoreham will never operate as a nuclear
> plant, because of the ironclad agreement, and also because it's been
> gutted.
> Further demolition would cost $200 million.
>
> A recent tour of the site by a reporter revealed a hulking shell
> of a structure, with newspapers left open on desktops -- a reminder of
> a costly political battle.
>
> The site is now host to a 79-megawatt turbine generator to meet
> peak demand, and two small wind turbines that are rarely functional.
>
> LIPA chief executive Kevin Law refers to the wind turbines as
> "toys, a public relation stunt." He's exploring uses for the site that
> could include a manufacturing plant for solar energy panels or
> large-scale wind- turbine blades.
>
> As for the Shoreham debt, he said, "It had been represented that
> it would be paid off by 2013. I think Long Islanders were misled on
> that,"
> because LIPA's debt will remain at $6.9 billion at that time.
>
> "Our debt continues to haunt us and it's the Shoreham debt that
> continues to be the driver of that," said Law.
>
> "In a perfect world, with the benefit of 25 or 30 years
> [hindsight], it should never have been built."
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan
>
> "In the end it was the economics that stopped it. I didn't stop
> it."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> "There was a time when the industry in this country said nuclear
> power will be too cheap to measure. Tell that to the people of Long
> Island, who own one that never produced a nickel's worth of power. And
> we're going to be paying for it and our children will be paying for it
> and their children will be paying for it as far out in the future as
> you can see."
>
> - Former LIPA chairman James Larocca
>
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Mark Harrington Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
>
> Thirty years ago this month, more than 15,000 people converged on
> Wading River on a rain-soaked Sunday to protest what was to be Long
> Island's first nuclear power plant under construction on the shores of
> Long Island Sound. With more than a billion dollars already spent on
> the nearby Shoreham plant, their efforts to stop the plant from ever
> operating appeared to be a long shot at best.
>
> But within 10 years of this day of mass protests, just that
> happened:
> Shareholders of the Long Island Lighting Co., the plant's owners,
> agreed to a plan to sell the Shoreham plant to New York State for $1,
> in exchange for 10 years of rate increases. Within a decade of that
> decision, which was hailed by anti-nuclear power advocates across the
> region, Long Islanders assumed a staggering $4 billion in
> Shoreham-related debt when the Long Island Power Authority purchased
> the regional electric system.
>
> The saga of how grass-roots organizing pushed Suffolk County
> legislators to oppose an all-but-completed plant with a multibillion-
> dollar price tag; how an eloquent governor, Mario Cuomo, warmed to
> their cause, and how other local and state officials came to call for
> the plant's closure, is the stuff of local political lore and history
> -- and today, some measure of second-guessing.
>
> What follows is an oral history as told by a number of key
> insiders who played roles in the effort to shutter a fully licensed
> plant whose costs had soared from an early estimate of $65 million to
> $5.2 billion.
> Some of
> them are telling their stories for the first time.
>
> The legacy of this closure is by no means a closed book on Long
> Island. Today, $16 of every $100 paid in Long Islanders' LIPA bills
> goes to debt service tied directly to Shoreham. And even with Shoreham
> turned off for good -- it is now but a shell sitting on a piece of
> prime waterfront property, a legacy of the intersection of public
> policy and mass protests -- the nuclear issue has resurfaced in the
> push for "cleaner" energy.
>
> Many nuclear power supporters cite the example of France, which
> meets nearly all of its electrical needs with nuclear power, as the
> way America must go in the future. Others say the plant's closure
> costs are too onerous for a region now saddled with some of the
> highest property taxes in the nation.
>
> Here are the stories of those involved in the plant's life and
> death:
>
> Feb. 22, 1965
>
> LILCO announces plans to build a 540-megawatt nuclear power plant
> at Shoreham. A decision is later made to enlarge the plant to 820
> megawatts.
>
> "The thinking was that if we enlarged it . . . there would be
> economies of scale and it would be a cheaper plant. . . . That
> introduced about a two-year delay in moving forward with the
> construction permit proceedings. That delay enabled the opposition to
> the plant to get organized and also to develop."
>
> - Matthew Cordaro, Long Island University professor and a former
> LILCO executive vice president
>
> Oct. 9, 1967
>
> Before breaking ground, LILCO discloses plans for a second
> nuclear plant at Lloyd Harbor. The first opposition to nuclear power
> on Long Island coalesces in the Lloyd Harbor home of Ann and William
> Carl (both died in
> 2008) and their Lloyd Harbor Study Group.
>
> "LILCO originally was going to build in Lloyd Harbor. That's when
> Ann Carl and her husband became involved. But when they finally
> decided to abandon Lloyd Harbor and build in Shoreham, she felt as a
> matter of principle they couldn't abandon it now because otherwise it
> would look like just a backyard issue."
>
> - Irving Like, Lloyd Harbor Study Group lawyer
>
> May 15, 1968
>
> LILCO applies to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for a Shoreham
> construction permit, opening the door to public hearings. Safety and
> related issues now come to the forefront.
>
> "We raised the evacuation issue. LILCO and the Atomic Energy
> Commission pooh-pooh-ed it and said we don't get into it at this
> stage, you can raise it at the operating license stage. That was a
> blunder."
>
> - Irving Like
>
> Aug. 12, 1978
>
> Forty protesters are arrested at the first anti-Shoreham
> demonstration. That year, Gov. Hugh Carey's administration releases an
> energy master plan.
>
> "The plan we wrote in 1978 said that the state would not
> authorize any additional nuclear power plants unless and until the
> nuclear waste cycle was taken into hand, which it wasn't then and 30
> years later is still not. But we did say that Shoreham, because it was
> thought to be well along, should be allowed to be completed. Over the
> next year or two it became clear that that wasn't going to happen."
>
> - James Larocca, public service commissioner, former state energy
> commissioner and former LIPA chairman
>
> March 28, 1979
>
> The Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania reports an
> accident, raising fears of a disaster that could impact the Northeast.
>
> "I was going to grad school at Columbia and minding my own
> business commuting. Then Three Mile Island happened and it concerned
> me. . . . I was concerned that the decisions being made around
> Shoreham to build the plant really left out local government."
>
> - Nora Bredes, University of Rochester professor, former Suffolk
> legislator and former director of the Shoreham Opponents Coalition
>
> "Three Mile Island came along and it was sort of a public-
> relations nightmare for the nuclear industry, and, in all frankness,
> the information was distorted by the media and Hollywood."
>
> - William Catacosinos, former LILCO chief
>
> "We visited Three Mile Island. We visited it as a legislature.
> We took
> a bus down, and we were shocked about some things that were never
> publicized substantially, such as the missing iodine filters that were
> in the stacks.
> That's how you measure the actual release of nuclear contamination
> into the atmosphere. They were just not accounted for."
>
> - Gregory Blass, former Suffolk legislator, now chief of
> Suffolk's Department of Social Services
>
> June 3, 1979
>
> More than 15,000 demonstrate against Shoreham near the plant in
> Wading River; 571 are arrested.
>
> "We were arrested and then taken over to one of LILCO's
> warehouses, and the first thing I noticed was that some people were
> already out of their handcuffs, and there were bumper stickers and
> posters all over the walls.
> And it was a beautiful feeling to see that the demonstrators had
> already claimed the space."
>
> - Peter Maniscalco, anti-Shoreham activist
>
> "So I went to the rally and after it there was a sense of, 'What
> do we do next?' I was one of those who said, 'Demonstrations are fine,
> but if we want to make a difference we have to go to the level of
> government that will be most sympathetic, Suffolk County.' "- Nora
> Bredes
>
> Nov. 3, 1980
>
> The Nuclear Regulatory Commission implements a rule mandating
> that nuclear plants have emergency evacuation plans formulated with
> state and local governments.
>
> "Looking back, the death knell began to ring for Shoreham when
> the Nuclear Regulatory Commission created a fatal loophole in its
> process, requiring that off-site emergency evacuation plans had to be
> approved by FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], and FEMA
> insisted that all such plans have the support of local government.
> This seems like a reasonable requirement, but it shifted control of
> the fate of the plant from the federal government to Suffolk County."
>
> - John Marburger, former George W. Bush administration science
> adviser and Stony Brook University president who in 1980 headed Gov.
> Cuomo's Shoreham study group
>
> Dec. 8, 1981
>
> Suffolk Legislature walks away from a settlement with LILCO that
> would have approved an evacuation plan in exchange for a
> county-appointed board to oversee aspects of the plant and issues such
> as evacuation.
>
> "That was during the transition period between the beginning of
> the real intense opposition that started to crystallize between Three
> Mile Island and 1983, when County Executive Peter Fox Cohalan threw
> his weight behind the opposition. During that window of opportunity,
> LILCO did a smart thing by breaking the logjam and finding a middle
> ground. But there was no real elected official that was out front
> supporting the evacuation plan and LILCO, so the proposal fell by the
> wayside. LILCO was out-organized by activists who had greater passion
> and organizing skills than those in favor of the plant."
>
> - Paul Sabatino II, former chief counsel and deputy county
> executive, Suffolk County
>
> Feb. 17, 1982
>
> Suffolk Legislature concludes there's no safe way to evacuate
> Shoreham, and Gov. Mario Cuomo weighs in publicly.
>
> "That was when we had an official task, an official role in
> examining and deciding the feasibility of evacuating the area in the
> event of a mishap at Shoreham. And that was an extensive process and
> of course the decision was, there could be no evacuation. You couldn't
> rely upon an emergency transit system whose drivers and coordinators
> would be concerned about the safety of their own families."
>
> - Gregory Blass
>
> "I knew all about Long Island and I knew you couldn't get home
> from the beach on a Saturday or a Sunday without great difficulty, and
> what occurred to me is, what happens if, God forbid, there's an
> episode [at the plant] and people have to run out of the area?"
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> May 1983
>
> Cuomo appoints Stony Brook University president John Marburger to
> head a commission to study Shoreham.
>
> "First of all, I don't think the study influenced Gov. Cuomo's
> decision very much. I think he had pretty much decided what he was
> going to do when he set up the commission in the first place. It seems
> to have been a tactic to gain time."
>
> - John Marburger
>
> Aug. 23, 1983
>
> Plant flaws, documented in a Newsday series in 1981 and by
> journalist Karl Grossman -- a former Long Island Press reporter and
> author of "Power Crazy," a book about the Shoreham fiasco -- become
> fodder for plant opponents.
>
> "A major component of a large diesel-powered generator necessary
> to provide backup cooling for the reactor in the event of a power
> failure was found to have a serious fracture. This was one of a long
> sequence of design and construction problems that emerged over time
> and were highly publicized, undermining the credibility of assertions
> by the utility that the plant was well designed and well constructed."
>
> - John Marburger
>
> Jan. 21, 1984
>
> LILCO announces construction of Shoreham is complete, at a cost
> of $4 billion. It's 11 years late and $3.35 billion over budget.
>
> "I don't remember anyone discussing how does it work
> economically. The economics, the costs, were a joke. The thing has
> become so expensive and the ratepayers are going to have to pay for
> it."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> "I think the thinking of the top management at that time, that
> was from their experience with major projects, and certainly this
> project costing as much as it did, that in no way down the road would
> this plant be drastically delayed or even abandoned because of . . .
> the magnitude of the venture. Really, at all levels of management, no
> one seriously thought that the project would not ultimately be
> licensed and operate, in a relatively short period of time."
>
> - Matthew Cordaro
>
> Jan. 30, 1984
>
> LILCO board member William Catacosinos is appointed chief
> executive of the company.
>
> "When I got on the board and looked at the financials, I said,
> 'This is a bankrupt company. I mean, how does it keep functioning?' "
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> March 6, 1984
>
> Catacosinos begins all-out effort to avoid bankruptcy,
> negotiating with banks, informing the Federal Reserve and slicing
> 1,000 jobs and dividends, as well as instituting pay cuts.
>
> "I went to the Federal Reserve in New York, and I went to
> Washington.
> I said, 'These are the options open to us: We may file for
> bankruptcy.' "
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> May 30, 1985
>
> Suffolk County Executive Peter Fox Cohalan, a plant critic, ends
> his opposition. His change of mind evokes howls of criticism of him
> from plant opponents.
>
> "I think I first met him [Catacosinos] at a party that was
> arranged by Bob Gardiner [Robert David Lion Gardiner, heir of
> Gardiner's Island] at Bob's mansion in East Hampton, where we got
> together over dinner and with a few mutual observers to discuss what
> could be done. And I said to him, 'You've got me over a barrel in
> withholding $131 million [in county taxes].'
> I said it was a very smart move and therefore you've got my attention.
> But I can't guarantee that my change of position will bring about the
> county [legislature] changing its position also. . . . I said, I'll
> make the pragmatic decision to change my decision to get the money."
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan, now a state Supreme Court justice
>
> July 7, 1985
>
> Shoreham plant begins operating at 5 percent of power after
> receiving a license to do so the prior February.
>
> "Eventually, we went to 5 percent power and everybody said,
> 'Don't you dare contaminate that plant! Don't you dare turn it on!'
> [But] we have a responsibility. That was the track we were on. . . .
> We had to move forward with that."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Sept. 27, 1985
>
> Hurricane Gloria hits Long Island, knocking out power to hundreds
> of thousands of LILCO customers for 10 days. Catacosinos, celebrating
> his 30th wedding anniversary in Italy, eventually cuts short the trip
> after a public outcry about his being away from Long Island, leaving
> his wife behind.
>
> "Hurricane Gloria did Shoreham in, without question. . . .
> People were
> so angry at the way LILCO handled it. People lost confidence in LILCO
> and that was the end of Shoreham."
>
> - Richard Kessel, former state consumer protection board chairman
> and former LIPA chairman and chief executive (once an anti-Shoreham
> activist)
>
> "He [Catacosinos] called me up [after that] and said, 'This is
> jinxed.
> It's jinxed.' I said, 'You're right. It is jinxed.' "
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan
>
> February 1986
>
> The Federal Emergency Management Agency issues a report saying it
> can't give an assurance that "the public health and safety can be
> protected," in the event of an accident at Shoreham.
>
> "I remember riding with the FEMA general counsel [on a mock
> evacuation drill], and we were going from site to site, the
> decontamination of people, the press area, and getting from site to
> site took us so long. And I said, 'What's going to happen when there's
> an accident and all hell breaks loose?
> I'm not putting my name on the report.' "
>
> - Huntington Supervisor Frank Petrone, then regional FEMA
> director, who was ordered to resign a week later by then-FEMA director
> Julius Becton
>
> April 28, 1986
>
> Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine causes mass evacuation
> after a fire, further raising fears about the safety of nuclear power.
>
> "I said to my people, 'All we need now is a major nuclear event
> to happen somewhere in the world.' And then Chernobyl came along and
> here we go again."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> July 3, 1986
>
> The Long Island Power Authority is born by an act of the State
> Legislature.
>
> March 3, 1987
>
> Suffolk sues LILCO under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
> Organizations statute, saying the company schemed to overcharge
> ratepayers for inflated Shoreham costs.
>
> April 4, 1987
>
> Even as it negotiates mothballing Shoreham, LILCO asks the
> Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 25 percent operational license for
> Shoreham.
> LILCO eventually backs away from this request.
>
> "I met with [Assembly leader] Stanley Fink. He said, 'Listen.
> This is
> a utility. You have to be sure that you and the governor stand
> together jointly to say you both agree to do this. If you don't you're
> stuck.' I said, 'What does that mean?' He said, 'You're not going to
> recover your investment. . . . You can spend whatever you want on a
> power plant, but until that plant is used and useful, you can't
> recover your investment through rate increases.' The $3 billion or $4
> billion we've got invested gets wiped out. We notified the state we
> could not enter this mothball scenario."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Oct. 29, 1987
>
> The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows LILCO to sidestep
> Suffolk's evacuation-plan authority by letting a LILCO evacuation plan
> serve in its place.
>
> Nov. 5, 1987
>
> The state Public Service Commission denies a LILCO rate-hike
> request after years of allowing Shoreham to proceed based on an
> expectation of future operating revenue.
>
> "The biggest mistake was for the PSC to have allowed LILCO to
> charge its ratepayers for the construction costs at the time. . . . If
> they had once said to LILCO, 'You can't have rate recovery for
> construction costs,'
> the plant would have died." -- Richard Kessel
>
> Dec. 18, 1987
>
> Talks between the state and LILCO resume.
>
> May 3, 1988
>
> LIPA, Cuomo and LILCO announce an agreement for LIPA to buy the
> Shoreham plant for $1, but the deal stalls after the State Legislature
> fails to endorse it.
>
> "I could never get the legislature to deal with the issue. I
> couldn't get them to condemn it, I couldn't get them to do a study of
> it. The local legislature did, but not the state."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> Feb. 28, 1989
>
> Cuomo instead turns to the New York Power Authority and the PSC
> to be the bodies whose boards must ratify a new agreement, which was
> reached under a midnight deadline. It provides LILCO with 10 years of
> rate increases, while LIPA pays $1 for Shoreham. LIPA oversees the
> decommissioning.
>
> "Vince Tese [Cuomo's director of economic development] was eating
> at Le Cirque. It was 9:30 or 10 o'clock and I had to find Vince Tese,
> go into the restaurant, get him out and into my car. . . . Here you
> are talking about the end of Shoreham happening not in a room where
> everybody's sitting down and talking but in a car in front of Le
> Cirque in Manhattan."
>
> - Richard Kessel
>
> June 29, 1989
>
> LILCO's board officially approves the LIPA agreement, putting a
> temporary end to the saga and preventing a wipeout of the value of
> LILCO stock.
>
> "In retrospect, you can take two points of view: A selfish point
> of view, which is, we go into bankruptcy, we wipe out shareholders,
> there's not equity, it's gone. We wipe out all our contracts. The
> banks are done. We negotiate with bondholders at cents on the dollar.
> Would I have gone to bankruptcy in retrospect? No. It would have hurt
> too many people."
>
> - William Catacosinos
>
> Aug. 15, 1989
>
> "What was really the issue in the summer 1989 meeting was whether
> or not the federal government was able to impede the settlement when
> in fact they couldn't. All they did was add to the cost." -- Gerald C.
> Crotty,
>
> former New York secretary of State, and counsel to Gov. Cuomo,
> who attended the meeting.
>
> Today, even some environmentalists in the United States are
> arguing that nuclear power must be part of the country's efforts to
> produce cleaner energy and reduce the dependence on foreign oil
> supplies. On Long Island, many are pushing offshore wind farms as a
> partial solution. Many look back at the Shoreham plant's closure and
> see it as grass-roots democracy in action; others see it is as
> political demagoguery and pandering run amok, with the result being
> Long Islanders' saddled with billions in debt.
>
> One thing is certain: Shoreham will never operate as a nuclear
> plant, because of the ironclad agreement, and also because it's been
> gutted.
> Further demolition would cost $200 million.
>
> A recent tour of the site by a reporter revealed a hulking shell
> of a structure, with newspapers left open on desktops -- a reminder of
> a costly political battle.
>
> The site is now host to a 79-megawatt turbine generator to meet
> peak demand, and two small wind turbines that are rarely functional.
>
> LIPA chief executive Kevin Law refers to the wind turbines as
> "toys, a public relation stunt." He's exploring uses for the site that
> could include a manufacturing plant for solar energy panels or
> large-scale wind- turbine blades.
>
> As for the Shoreham debt, he said, "It had been represented that
> it would be paid off by 2013. I think Long Islanders were misled on
> that,"
> because LIPA's debt will remain at $6.9 billion at that time.
>
> "Our debt continues to haunt us and it's the Shoreham debt that
> continues to be the driver of that," said Law.
>
> "In a perfect world, with the benefit of 25 or 30 years
> [hindsight], it should never have been built."
>
> - Peter Fox Cohalan
>
> "In the end it was the economics that stopped it. I didn't stop
> it."
>
> - Mario Cuomo
>
> "There was a time when the industry in this country said nuclear
> power will be too cheap to measure. Tell that to the people of Long
> Island, who own one that never produced a nickel's worth of power. And
> we're going to be paying for it and our children will be paying for it
> and their children will be paying for it as far out in the future as
> you can see."
>
> - Former LIPA chairman James Larocca
>