NYCkayaker LI Sound: One man's Broadwater vigil

[Harry J. Bubbins]

  Paddling out there in July, all welcomed....
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One man's Broadwater vigil
 
Manorville resident camping on beach near proposed terminal site

Contact:  peter maniscalco <peteronlongisland at yahoo.com>
 
 

By Denise Civiletti

WADING RIVER‹On Sunday, Pete Maniscalco pitched a small tent on the beach in
Shoreham, just west of Wading River Creek,

looking out over the wide blue-green expanse of the Long Island Sound where
Broadwater Energy wants to build a floating liquefied natural gas facility.
Looming behind him was the silent behemoth of the embattled, defunct
Shoreham nuclear power plant built by LILCO three decades ago.

The 65-year-old Manorville grandfather plans to spend the next month on the
beach, in prayer, meditation and communion with the spirit of nature. And,
he hopes, engaging people in a dialogue about the earth's resources,
especially Long Island Sound, a body of water he calls sacred.

"This place is all about energy," Mr. Maniscalco said Sunday, standing at
the creek's edge. "There's the spiritual energy of the Sound itself," he
said, gesturing north toward the water. "There's the dead nuke carcass." He
points at the aqua-colored concrete stack of the defunct power plant that
rises on the shore southwest of the creek. "And then there's Broadwater."

Broadwater Energy, a joint venture of Shell and TransCanada Corp., is
seeking permits to construct and operate a floating natural gas storage and
"regasification" facility that would be moored in the Sound, nine miles
north of Wading River. The facility ‹ which would be 1,200 feet long, 180
feet wide and rise 75 to 80 feet above sea level, according to the
Broadwater Energy Web site ‹ would take delivery of liquefied natural gas
from oceangoing tankers every two to three days, heat the liquid to
"regasify" it, or change it back to a gaseous state, and feed it to the
existing Iroquois gas transmission system via a new 22-mile-long connecting
pipeline to be built along the Sound bottom. The proposal, currently under
review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has drawn strong
opposition from community and environmental groups and local government
officials on both sides of the Sound.

Broadwater violates the spirit of nature, according to Mr. Maniscalco, a
former Long Island University environmental studies professor who was once
the coordinator of the Stop Shoreham campaign.

"I believe Broadwater Energy violates the spiritual integrity of the Long
Island Sound," Mr. Maniscalco said. During his month on the beach, he will
"invoke the spirit of nature, the spirit of the Sound to reject Broadwater,"
he said, fingering a Cherokee prayer stick, from which dangle an eagle's
feather and two hawk feathers. It was given to him, he said, by a
96-year-old Cherokee man who visited him during a 55-day anti-Shoreham vigil
he held on the same beach in 1989.

"We respect the right of every individual to express themselves on issues of
importance to them, but we must also recognize that Long Island Sound is,
and always has been, a commercial waterway," said John Hritcko Jr., a
spokesman for Broadwater Energy. "Currently some 4,000-7,000 commercial
vessels traverse Long Island Sound annually, carrying fuel oil, coal and
petrochemicals," he said. "Broadwater would be an improvement to provide
homes, schools and churches with cleaner, more affordable energy."

Mr. Maniscalco began his vigil Sunday because June 3 marks the anniversary
of a big anti-Shoreham march that drew thousands of protesters to the tiny
hamlet in 1979, a turning point in the Stop Shoreham campaign. He will end
his vigil July 7, the day of the "Live Earth" concerts being staged around
the world to draw attention to the Earth's climate crisis.

Sporting a navy blue T-shirt emblazoned with "Son of Long Island" in bold
white letters, the gray-bearded professor speaks of his lifelong connection
to the Sound. He spent summers on the North Shore beach growing up, and the
Sound has always held deep meaning for him, he said.

"Shinnecock elder Elizabeth Hale said, 'To remember is to bring to mind what
you are to do.' I remember my spiritual connection with the Long Island
Sound. I know this is what I have to do," Mr. Maniscalco said.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the
Environment and the driving force behind the Anti-Broadwater Coalition, last
week distributed a press release announcing the vigil from Renew Community
Earth, an environmental organization Mr. Maniscalco runs. "This is a
demonstration of how serious this issue is to Long Islanders," she said in
an interview Monday. "Holding a vigil is a universal form of activism to
create change," she noted.

There is a time and a place for political activism, and there is also a time
for spiritual activism, Mr. Maniscalco said. "The time has come for the
spirit to manifest."

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