Protect Our Coast Long Island NY (POC-LINY) is a Long Island group of residents.
The group’s committee resides mostly in Long Beach, Island Park and other south shore communities, we have an interest in protecting the environment in ALL of Long Island’s coastal waters. We are committed to protecting every inch of Long Island’s coasts, be it the ocean or the sound as well as the natural communities and neighborhoods that surround them. The group seeks to identify, and mitigate or avoid, any adverse impacts that could result from the transmission line cables, substation(s) and other infrastructure.
More broadly, POC-LINY was formed to promote: (1) the conservation of natural environments on land and in the sea; (2) the preservation of natural habitat; (3) the protection of human health and welfare; and (4) preservation of community character through orderly development. The group opposes the inappropriate industrialization of Long Island’s remaining natural environment.

POC-LINY believes in the importance of green, clean energy and our efforts are to ensure ALL utility projects are carefully researched and scrutinized with proper due diligence with consideration to residents, visitors, local businesses, and other stakeholders. We are closely monitoring the offshore wind turbine projects planned for the coast of Long Island; Empire Wind 1&2, Beacon Wind, Sunrise Wind, Southfork Wind and evaluating the existing Block Island wind project.
These wind turbine projects have tremendous legislative momentum and are encouraged by local politicians influenced by big corporate money knowing it is a crime against nature and our beautiful pristine oceans and the sea-life therein.
Our objective is to raise awareness to the public about the incredibly flawed science of creating energy through Wind turbines in Saltwater for financial gain. Their plan is to run high-voltage cable wires through densely populated Long Beach, Island Park and Oceanside. These cables will be situated in front of thousands of homes along the route. A massive electrical substation (powered using gas) is planned for Island Park at the former Pops restaurant location, this facility will be as close as 75 feet to residential homes it will also be un-staffed. Cable lines continue thru Island Park along residential backyards via the Long Island Railroad corridor. The Barrett power plant in Oceanside will be expanding onto a new Point of Interconnection at the Hampton Rd location (formerly Liottas Recycling). Running high voltage cables of this magnitude in close proximity to residential homes has NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE and there is no analogous study to see the impacts it may have short and long term. This is alarming and unacceptable. Other large scale utility projects we’re watching are Juno Anbaric and Propel NY
Environmental conservation organization created to protect our coastal communities and the surrounding waterways from industrialization to maintain residents’ quality of life as well as preserving the rights of nature.
Protect Our Coast, Long Island New York (POCLINY) represents the interests of residents, homeowners and businesses on Long Island that are concerned with decisions being made by the state of New York in implementing the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
From the outset, we see that actions being taken have no sound economic or engineering basis. The scoping plan prepared by the Climate Action Council (CAC) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) claim that “Wind, water, and sunlight will power most of New York’s economy in 2050”. However, only one of these—hydropower—is a reliable source of electricity. About 23% of the state’s electricity comes from hydro. Yet, even if the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is built, hydropower is expected to provide a smaller percentage of the state’s electricity in 2050 than today. We note that both the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and NYSERDA predict a doubling of demand by 2050. However, state policy-makers seem to believe that in 26 years, solar and wind will replace fossil fuels to not only meet current electricity demand, but also create enough energy to run EVs, heat buildings, and drive industry.
POC-LINY is particularly concerned with projections by NYSERDA in the CAC Scoping Plan for 18 GW of offshore wind. We have seen the state accept bids for intermittent generation at pricing that dwarfs what New Yorkers currently pay for electricity, even as over a million ratepayers are in arrears. In addition to supply-chain issues, complications with offshore construction, and challenges of grid connectivity that all add to cost and delay, the fact that wind is a non- dispatchable resource incapable of providing reliable electricity in response to demand makes the state’s obsession with this underperforming technology foolish. Rather than building myriad sprawling, intermittent generators that only work when the weather cooperates, it is time to consider alternatives. Rather than trudging obstinately down an expensive, destructive path that ends in failure, New York should invest in reliable carbon-free technology with high energy density that can meet the needs of a growing economy.
To this end, POC-LINY calls on NYSERDA to suspend negotiations with foreign wind developer Equinor, who in February 2024 was awarded a new provisional offshore wind contract for the first phase of the Empire Wind project. If fully built, Empire Wind would place as many as 147 turbines — each nearly 1000 feet tall — just 14 miles from the shore off Long Beach.
Empire Wind was first awarded a contract in 2019 from NYSERDA to supply 816 MW of power at 11.8 cents/kWh, more than twice the price of power available on the wholesale market. While admitting this to be a ratepayer subsidy, NYSERDA said that it expected offshore wind prices to soon decline and “go well below that of existing fossil fuel plants.” However, contrary to those rosy projections, Equinor was soon back seeking an increase to the contract prices it had agreed to before. In June 2023, the company petitioned the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) for 16 cent/kWh. The PSC denied the request saying that such an increase would “not be in the best interests of the state’s ratepayers” and that it could not entertain new pricing for contracts previously awarded through competitive bidding. However, NYSERDA immediately moved to circumvent that decision by offering Equinor an opportunity to re-bid its 2019 contract through an expedited process and obtain the higher power prices it desired. Consequently, in February 2024, NYSERDA announced that Empire Wind had been selected for negotiation of a new contract which could raise the price even higher to 17 cents/kwh or more. We have observed this chain of events with mounting concern for the impact on ratepayers who will bear the burden of ever increasing, unbounded subsidies as well as potential harm to the tourist economy vital to communities along our southern shore.
To better understand the economic impacts of this award, POCLINY commissioned a study by Whitestrand Consulting, which determined the following:
- New York ratepayers will pay more than triple the market price for power from Empire Wind One, which will cost them an extra $14 billion over the life of the project.
- The total costs associated with the project outweigh the purported benefits by over $30 billion and by a factor of 5.7.
- The New York ratepayer subsidies and Federal tax credits available will allow Equinor to realize profits resulting in a 25% return on investment compared with the 9% allowed regulated utilities on similar projects.
Whitestrand’s report concluded that the new award for Empire Wind, if finalized, will violate the CLCPA requirements mandating that approval of projects result in equitable outcomes while minimizing costs and maximizing benefit to the state:
The EW1 project as currently approved imposes significant ratepayer subsidies and costs which have not been demonstrated to result in a positive cost-benefit
outcome nor provide a fair balance of financial risk and rewards between ratepayers and the shareholders of the developer.
This report demonstrates that allowing Equinor to re-bid the original 2019 EW1 contract will greatly exacerbate these deficiencies and burden ratepayers with significantly higher above market power prices and subsidies.
It is important to note that the costs involving the direct ratepayer subsidies and the effect of those higher electric rates on NY economy in the form of lost jobs and lower wages, as well as lost tourism dollars, all fall disproportionately on lower income residents and communities who can least afford them.
Accordingly, it is strongly recommended that a new EW1 contract be rejected at the OREC prices and conditions proposed by NYSERDA. Such an award would violate the spirit and the letter of the CLPCA and the PSC mandate to ensure that costs imposed on the state’s residents, businesses and institutions are “just and reasonable” as required by law.
It is worth noting that five years into the CLCPA, state actions have increased, not decreased, greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector by millions of tons annually. While, in 2019, the state relied on fossil fuel for 39% of electricity generation, fossil fuels now make up about 50% of state electricity generation. However, the state is not only failing to deliver the CLCPA promise of climate leadership. It is also failing to deliver the CLPA’s promise of community protection. POC-LINY formed in response to the state’s failure to protect Long Island residents. We also recognize that upstate communities are battling industrial sprawl that ignores home rule and environmental review. Across the state, communities are being robbed of fair tax assessment and now are subject to eminent domain land seizure to support the construction of wind and solar farms that often sit idle.
It is not hard to see what the future holds if New York continues down it its current path. California has spent 20 years and billions of dollars in an effort to decarbonize its grid. The state enjoys double the solar capacity factor of New York and has deserts to put solar panels. It also boasts the largest lithium-ion battery in the world. However, Californians now pay almost double the national average per kWh for electricity, and the state has had to obtain air pollution waivers from the EPA to build new gas-fired power plants to provide the reliable electricity that wind and solar cannot produce. California relies on its neighbors for a third of its electricity, much of that being coal-fired—and when that energy does not arrive, the lights go out in Los Angeles.
It is difficult for New Yorkers to understand Albany’s embrace of a costly energy plan focused almost entirely on wasteful, intermittent, underperforming generation—a plan that has failed wherever it has been tried. Energy planning must be fiscally responsible and rooted in competent engineering if the state hopes to have reliable, affordable electricity that is also carbon-free. Furthermore, Long Island residents and rural communities, like all New Yorkers, deserve environmental justice.
NYSERDA is expected to reach a final contract with Equinor by June 2024. POCLINY will make use of all legal remedies available to challenge the award of any contract that is neither just nor reasonable.