NYCkayaker nyt: His Protest Tool: Spiritual Energy of L.I. Sound

[Harry J. Bubbins]

Canoer for the the environment!!!
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Subject: His Protest Tool: Spiritual Energy of L.I. Sound Peter M in the
NYTImes!

 Council member Jim Gennarro has tried to get a resolution passed in the NYC
City Council to support this absurd project!!!!!

Contact your council member today and tell them NO to BROADWATER.

Harry

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The Island
His Protest Tool: Spiritual Energy of L.I. Sound


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/01colli.html?ref
=nyregionspecial2

By COREY KILGANNON
Published: July 1, 2007
WADING RIVER

In the Region
Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey
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PETE MANISCALCO, a 65-year-old environmental activist from Manorville,
considers Broadwater Energy¹s plan to put a huge floating natural gas tanker
in Long Island Sound nothing short of an assault on the spirituality of
nature.

To make his point, he is holding a monthlong vigil camped out on the beach
here in the shadow of the decommissioned Shoreham nuclear power plant.
Broadwater, he says, is as wrongheaded and ill-fated as Shoreham was.

Broadwater, which is under federal review, has drawn strong opposition,
including raucous meetings, letter-writing and political pressure. But Mr.
Maniscalco simply took his canoe and sleeping bag and paddled across Wading
River Creek onto the property of the decommissioned plant, a huge, eerie
shell that looms over the shoreline.

He pitched his tent on the beach and declared it his power spot ‹ there
between the defeated dragon at Shoreham and the spot nine miles out on the
Sound where Broadwater wants to put its tanker.

³It¹s all about energy here,² Mr. Maniscalco said from the beach on Monday.
He says he wants to combine the positive energy from the victory over the
Shoreham plant with the deep spiritual energy from the Sound to help
transform the energy being used to bring in Broadwater toward a different
campaign, one of energy conservation and efficiency, not furthering fossil
fuels.

Defeating Shoreham, which was never operated commercially, was a momentous
spiritual moment for Long Island, he said, and he wants the plant behind him
literally and figuratively.

³I chose this spot because I wanted the nuke on my back as I faced
Broadwater,² he said, looking out toward the horizon. ³This body of water is
living, and it is as sacred as any temple or church. To put an industrial
barge in the middle of it violates its spiritual integrity.²

The vigil, which he hopes to finish next Saturday, began on June 3. On the
third day, security officials told Mr. Maniscalco to leave, but he refused
and was detained.

Mr. Maniscalco is accustomed to being handcuffed at protests, including the
memorable one here on June 3, 1979, at which 15,000 people held one of the
largest demonstrations in Long Island history. Hundreds climbed the fence
and pulled down Shoreham¹s front gates. That day became a turning point in
the Stop Shoreham campaign, so Mr. Maniscalco chose June 3 to begin his
vigil.

Now he was prepared for handcuffs again. But after a few tense hours, a call
came from Richard Kessel, chief executive of the Long Island Power
Authority, which controls the Shoreham property.

³They tried to remove him, and I told them not to,² Mr. Kessel said in a
phone interview on Tuesday. He said he had known Mr. Maniscalco from the
earliest days of the Shoreham issue.

³Pete¹s engaged in a protest about the spirituality of the Long Island
Sound, and he should be allowed to do it,² Mr. Kessel said. ³He feels the
spirituality of the Sound would be disrupted by Broadwater, and his position
is important.²

Mr. Kessel said LIPA, which could wind up buying gas from the Broadwater
tank, is ³still studying the issue² and has yet to take a position on the
Broadwater plan to use a tanker 1,200 feet long, 180 feet wide and 75 to 80
feet above sea level.

Mr. Maniscalco, who taught a class at Southampton College called
Spirituality of the Environment, wears sandals, shorts and his blue ³Son of
Long Island² T-shirt. Fishermen offer him fish, and his wife, Stephanie
Joyce, brings him meals. A nearby resident lets him use the bathroom. One
night, a northeaster blew down Mr. Maniscalco¹s tent. Another night, he woke
up in the midst of a vicious thunderstorm.

But he meditated on the sunrise of the summer solstice, and it filled him
with the spiritual energy to continue, he said, and since then it has been
an enriching and spiritual experience. He uses a Cherokee prayer stick made
from eagle, owl and hawk feathers. It was given to him, he said, by a
96-year-old American Indian during another beach camping vigil, 55 days in
1989.

Mr. Maniscalco spent childhood summers in a Rocky Point beach bungalow and
eventually became a city planner. The 1960s challenged his values and left
him lost, he said. With a wife and three young children, he quit his job and
became a clammer and, he said, was saved by the majesty and spirituality of
the Sound.

³The Sound took me in and healed me,² he said.

He spends his vigil days on the shoreline, looking at the horizon and
meditating. He spends nights in his tent a few paces west of Wading River
Creek next to a protected area for piping plovers.

He passes the time with a copy of Men¹s Journal and listening to new age
music on a hand-cranked radio under the glow of his solar-powered lantern.
He goes to bed to a chorus of crickets under a starry sky and wakes up to
deer on the beach.

³I tell you,² he said, as the sun began sliding into the Sound and he shoved
his canoe into Wading River Creek, ³it¹s going to be hard to leave.²

E-mail: theisland at nytimes.com

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