By:Scott Brinton
Merrick residents lambast Freeport for keeping 'dirty diesels' up and running
Joan Bottalico of North Merrick stood at the microphone in the Freeport High School auditorium last Monday night, her eyes scanning the almost 1,000-seat hall. She wanted to find the official who oversees Freeport Village's diesel-electric Plant No. 2 so she could ask him a question.
"I'd really like to know how he gets through his day?" she said.
Bottalico is among the estimated 300 Merrick and Freeport residents who attended an Oct. 22 state Department of Environmental Conservation hearing over Freeport's permit to run Plant No. 2. Person after person, including Bottalico, spoke of their fears that exhaust from the 1969 plant might cause cancer. Numerous studies link diesel exhaust with the disease.
Beside Bottalico stood her husband, Arnold, clutching the couple's newborn, Sean. This last year, Arnold Bottalico, 36, a real-estate attorney, was diagnosed with a rare, deadly form of cancer, acute myelogenous leukemia.
Arnold Bottalico's leukemia is in remission, but his doctors give him only a 30 percent chance of survival.
Joan Bottalico pleaded with Molly McBride, the DEC administrative law judge overseeing the hearing, to "please close the plant down and not let this happen to another family."
Thus went what quickly became an emotional, at times fiery evening, punctuated by many stories of residents who have suffered from or died of cancer.
The DEC convened the hearing to collect testimony about the plant's Title V operating permit, which the agency rewrote this last summer. The draft permit, which includes stricter pollution and monitoring standards for Plant No. 2, cannot take effect until the DEC completes hearings over it. Meanwhile, the plant will run under its November 1998 permit, which contains no emissions requirements.
The new permit would force the plant to comply with particulate (soot), nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide regulations found in the State Implementation Plan for the federal Clean Air Act, said Judge McBride.
subhed: Freeport's case
Freeport is challenging the draft permit. At the Monday hearing, Paul Casowitz, a Manhattan attorney for Freeport Electric, called it "inconsistent" with state regulations and "public policy" that calls for additional sources of electric generation. Casowitz, of Sive Paget & Riesel, also said Freeport officials were "perplexed by the timing" of the DEC's decision to rewrite the permit, given that Long Island faces an energy crunch.
DEC officials, including Regional Director Ray Cowen, believe that enforcing the new permit would lead Freeport to install pollution controls at the plant (it has none now) or shut it down.
After an additional series of hearings that are expected to start in November, Judge McBride will decide whether the draft permit should be enforced, and she will issue a recommended ruling to DEC Commissioner Erin Crotty, who will decide the case. The November hearings were to have begun Oct. 23, but a last-minute change to the draft permit by the DEC delayed the proceedings. No timetable was set for the hearings, at which witnesses for the DEC and Freeport can be called. The DEC had not released information about the permit change at press time.
Casowitz, Freeport's attorney, argued on Monday that Plant No. 2 provides the "flexibility" the village needs to maintain energy prices that are 40 percent less than those of the Long Island Power Authority. Freeport buys most of its electricity from the New York Power Authority upstate, but when NYPA's price outpaces Freeport's cost of generating electricity, the village runs Plant No. 2, the attorney said.
Casowitz added that Freeport's lower energy rates have helped build its industrial park and business district. "Performance means providing service, not sound bites," he said.
subhead: Residents cry foul
Merrick and Freeport residents, however, dismissed Casowitz's arguments, saying that public health must supersede economics when deciding whether Plant No. 2's new permit should be enforced.
County Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick), an environmental attorney, said, "I understand the need for power production in this day and age...However, this cannot be accomplished while compromising health, safety and quality of life."
Cindy Crociata, a member of the Old Lindenmere Civic Association, called plant exhaust a "chemical attack on all of us" and said she wondered how profits gained because of the power plant could be "compared to the value of one's health."
Area activists called on the DEC to immediately test the plant's two smokestacks for emissions violations. Joseph Kralovich, president of the Old Lindenmere Civic Association, said, "There is no rhyme or reason why we can't have a stack test now."
Keri Powell, staff attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, supported the argument, saying, "Instead of acting quickly to address this public-health threat, DEC proposes to delay a stack test until an unspecified time after a revised Title V permit is issued."
Cowen, the DEC regional director, said in an earlier interview that a stack test could not be performed until the draft permit is enforced.
Powell also called on the DEC to issue a Summary Abatement Order to shut down the plant until officials confirm it complies with environmental regulations.
Bob Young of Merrick said the DEC should install a citizen group to watch over the plant's emissions. "Any settlement that excludes this device would be doomed to repeat the mistakes that have gotten us to this point already," said Young.
Overwhelmingly, people said they're fearful living near Plant No. 2. Diane Seaman, a Merrick School Board trustee, said, "I am concerned, scared, frustrated, angry."
Her son, Tyler Seaman, 9, said, "I am afraid every day that I will not see another day."
Mark Vassilakis said that he and his wife, Nancy, are indefinitely delaying having children because of fears that the plant's exhaust might cause cancer. In light of residents' health concerns, Vassilakis said Freeport attorney Casowitz's comments about Plant No. 2's economic necessity were "disdainful."
Felicia Berger, an oncology nurse and Birch Elementary School PTA president, said she supports research for a cancer cure. Closing the plant or cleaning it up, though, represents an opportunity to stop "cancers before they start, right in our own backyard."
Neil Yeoman of Merrick, a chemical engineer, said the DEC failed in the draft permit to address what he called the most dangerous byproducts of diesel combustion, unburned hydrocarbons, which are linked to breast cancer.
And Victoria Rosenberg, president of the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowner's Association, said civic associations across the South Shore, from Lynbrook to Massapequa, are uniting to fight Plant No. 2. Rosenberg is to serve as chairperson of a joint civic council. Air pollution from the plant, she noted, "knows no boundary."
Judge McBride accepted the comments, but issued no ruling or statement.
A night of music
To benefit plant fight
The Old Lindenmere Civic Association is to host "A Night of Art Songs and Arias" as a fundraiser for its ongoing fight against diesel Plant No. 2.
"A Night" will feature a performance by Anton Belov, a baritone, of the Julliard School in Manhattan and recent winner of the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation International Vocal Competition.
The performance is to take place at The Stage, 2222 Merrick Ave., Merrick, on Sunday, Nov. 11. For more information, call Mark or Nancy Vassilakis at (516) 623-5271.
