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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory backs state bill overseeing PSEG Long Island

Aug
18
2020

A seven-day power outage at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory risked the loss of millions of dollars of critical cancer and COVID-19 research, lab officials said Tuesday, spurring their support for a bill to give the state emergency oversight over PSEG Long Island.

During the early days of Tropical Storm Isaias, when the lab lost its connection to the Long Island electric grid, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory officials worked desperately to reach PSEG decision makers to report and troubleshoot the outage that ultimately required a relatively simple fix, they said. When lab officials did get through, they received a response familiar to thousands of Long Islanders who attempted to reach the utility after the storm.

“We were always told, tomorrow noon,”...| read more ››

Sanitizer, Equipment Donated to LI Cares

Aug
16
2020

Long Island Cares in Huntington Station received about 1,000 pieces of personal protection equipment and bottles of hand sanitizer Sunday.

The group Pakistani-Americans in the Town of Huntington made the contribution. State Sen. Jim Gaughran, Dr. Sara Siddiqui, and Paule Pachter, CEO of Long Island Cares, were on hand to accept the donation.

Muhammed Ashraf of PATH led the donation event.| read more ››

Railroad report says LIRR still a ways off on hitting positive train control metric

Aug
13
2020

Potentially lifesaving crash prevention technology is in place on nearly three-quarters of the Long Island Rail Road, but the railroad still has a ways to go to make its “positive train control” system interoperable with Amtrak, a new report said.

The Federal Railroad Administration’s “PTC Implementation Status Update” for the second quarter found that the LIRR, through June 30, had positive train control operational on 72.1% of its territory.

Positive train control, also known as PTC, was ordered by Congress in 2008 — after a California train crash — to prevent rail collisions by automatically slowing down or halting trains that violate stop signals.

The LIRR, which twice has been granted extensions to the original 2015 federal deadline, must have...| read more ››

North Shore residents, officials decry PSEG storm response

Aug
13
2020

Thousands of homes and businesses across the North Shore lost power as Tropical Storm Isaias’s strong winds downed trees Aug. 4. The outages were inevitable, a number of residents said, but some expressed frustration with how PSEG Long Island responded, citing its lack of communication with residents and government officials.

Utility officials held a news conference Aug. 8 to address the outages. “We’ll continue to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the last customer is back,” said Daniel Eichhorn, PSEG Long Island’s president and chief operating officer. “We continue to meet with our mutual assistant groups, [and] we have opened a request for additional line workers to come into our territory. We’ve received about an additional...| read more ››

Pols Blast PSEG-LI For Delays In Restoring Power To Medically Vulnerable People After Isaias

Aug
12
2020

Nine days after Tropical Storm Isaias left many without power on Long Island, lawmakers are demanding that the utility improve its process for prioritizing restoration to customers who are medically vulnerable.

Among the unhappy PSEG-LI customers is Rebecca Gutierrez, a 9-month bedridden pregnant mother of two from Huntington who was still without power Wednesday. With only 10 days until her due date and daily phone calls to the utility, she has still not been placed on the company’s critical care list, which is intended to prioritize customers in fragile medical conditions.

“One of the latest responses I got [from PSEG] was that I should go stay at somebody’s house that has power,” she said. “During the pandemic, when we’ve been...| read more ››

9 Days In, PSEG-LI Crew Restores Power for Pregnant Woman and Family

Aug
12
2020

Update: A pregnant Huntington woman whose power was cut for nine days got it restored after a PSEG-LI worker heard about her plight on a radio report.

Sophia Hall of WCBS radio said a PSEG-LI worker contacted her after hearing her report and arranged to get a crew sent to the home of Rebecca Guiterrez.

Earlier, a pediatrician and State Sen. James Gaughran spoke at a press conference to push for the family’s power to be restored. Gaughran said that PSEG-LI is failing to take care of people with medical needs.

Gutierrez, whose third child is due in 10 days, said she has been unable to persuade the utility to provide power to the house, which is 10 degrees...| read more ››

Thousands remain without power as PSEG comes under fire from officials in Isaias aftermath

Aug
12
2020

“Before the major storm knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders, the electric company promised that they were prepared,” Nassau County Legislator Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove) wrote in a letter to her constituents Aug. 7.

“Then, the website for reporting power outages crashed and the phone lines jammed, text messages and apps fared little better, trees tangled in electrical wires blocked major thoroughfares days later and the company couldn’t track what traffic lights were still out.” DeRiggi-Whitton wrote. “Are we talking about Superstorm Sandy in 2012 – or Tropical Storm Isaias just a few days ago?”

Over a week after winds from Tropical Storm Isaias rocked Long Island for under three hours, thousands of PSEG Long Island...| read more ››

N.Y. State Sen. Jim Gaughran Says Utility Leaders Should Resign Over Handling Of Isaias

Aug
12
2020

On Long Island, New York State Senator Jim Gaughran has called on the heads of the regional power authority and utility company to step down, as thousands are still without power a week after Tropical Storm Isaiah.

He blames continued outages on breakdowns in communication from Long Island Power Authority and PSEG Long Island.

"A public utility is supposed to have a communication system that has so much redundancy it should never go out," Gaughran said. "I know that because I used to chair the Suffolk County Water Authority before I became a state senator."

Gaughran said he’ll draft legislation that would give the Public Service Commission the power to oversee storm management planning and preparation — including drills.

The...| read more ››

Protecting LI's drinking water

Aug
11
2020

The state’s recent adoption of tough new drinking water standards for three emerging contaminants, though too long in the making, is welcome news, especially given the shameful inaction of the federal Environmental Protection Agency on water quality matters.

The state limit of 1 part per billion for 1,4-dioxane is the first standard in the nation for the likely carcinogen, and the 10 parts per trillion limit for the possible carcinogens perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is one of the toughest restrictions among the several states that have set limits. The standards are especially important for Long Island, which has dozens of wells with high concentrations of at least one of those substances.

These are the first chemicals to...| read more ››

LI Officials Call On PSEG To Reimburse For Blackout, Perishables

Aug
10
2020

NASSAU COUNTY, NY — In the wake of PSEG Long Island's heavily criticized response to Tropical Storm Isaias, government officials from the town all the way up to the federal level are calling on the utility to reimburse customers.

On Monday, multiple government officials, at multiple different events, called on PSEG to reimburse customers who were affected by the outage, and to also not raise rates to pay for the recovery efforts. The officials wanted PSEG to pay customers for the time their power was out, and to also reimburse the costs of food and medication they may have spoiled because of the outages.

"We experienced across Long Island more than 400,000 power outages, and Long Island suffered more outages...| read more ››

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