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Sierra Club

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The debate over the future of Long Island’s electrical grid picked up last week, Sept. 14, at the Nassau County legislative building, with officials, utility staff and members of the public offering competing visions.

The Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority is a bipartisan panel of state legislators from Long Island and the Rockaways formed in 2022 to consider the potential municipalization of LIPA after its management agreement with PSEG Long Island expires in December 2025.

Accountability

Chief among the concerns outlined during the hearing was public accountability by members of the LIPA Board.

Under the existing appointment structure, the New York State governor appoints five of the nine members, with the Legislature selecting the remaining four.

New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) suggested this appointment structure could change. “All of those appointments are made by individuals that don’t live on Long Island,” he said. “There has always been the consideration that there should be more local say about the governance of LIPA.”

But achieving that degree of local oversight remains an open question. Michael Menser, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center, proposed creating a stakeholder advisory committee to make recommendations to the LIPA Board.

“We think a committee stakeholder board — possibly working with an independent research institute or observatory, supporting a fully public utility — could make this transition happen in a way that is speedy, democratic and beneficial both economically and ecologically,” he said.

Ryan Madden, sustainability organizer of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, suggested that the county and city governments within LIPA’s service area should make appointments to the board.

“In some ways, there is an argument that some state appointments make sense as it’s a state entity,” Madden said. “But there should be more input or appointments from local jurisdictions.”

“There could be a situation where the governor gets appointments, the Senate and Assembly get appointments, the Nassau County executive working with the Legislature gets appointments, and the same with Suffolk,” he added.

Governance/management

Thiele said the commission had explored an elective LIPA Board in its first round of hearings but backtracked on this idea, favoring an appointed board instead.

“Especially when you’re talking about [the] National Labor Relations Act,” an appointed board “would better serve to protect labor,” the assemblyman said.

Madden nonetheless supported greater local oversight over the appointment process.

“Our recommendations are just to ensure that there is robust community participation and more local decision-making in whatever appointment process that we determine,” he said.

Tom Falcone, LIPA’s CEO, had attended the Nassau meeting and pushed back on earlier testimony from PSEGLI vice president of external affairs Christopher Hahn, who suggested that the friction between the two utilities creates checks and balances. [See story, “LIPA and PSEGLI wrestle for control over Long Island’s electrical grid,” Sept. 14, TBR News Media website.]

“There aren’t supposed to be checks and balances in management,” Falcone said. “Checks and balances at the management level means a lack of accountability of the vendor. It means the vendor can check what the board wants,” adding, “I think, fundamentally, the problem is that you have one vendor, and they can’t be fired.”

Other input

Luis Vazquez, president and CEO of the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber does not support the municipalization proposal due to the commission’s perceived lack of public outreach and education.

“Half of the problem is educating our communities and chambers,” he said. “So, if we don’t get the message and we don’t know what we’re voting on, I’d rather just not take a position.”

Guy Jacob, an at-large delegate of the Sierra Club, said his organization’s national, state and Long Island chapters all support municipalization.

“This so-called public-private partnership is unique among municipal electric utilities in the U.S., and the time is now at hand to terminate this decades-long, failed anomaly,” he said. “The moment has come to terminate the tyranny of shareholders over ratepayers.”

Jacob pointed to a perceived lack of alignment between the profit interests of the electric service provider and the LIPA customers, adding that “redundant” management positions within LIPA and PSEGLI add unnecessary costs for utility power.

Conversations over the restructuring of LIPA remain ongoing. To view the commission’s meetings, visit totalwebcasting.com/live/nylipa. Written testimony can be submitted at nylipa.gov/public-input.

State Assemblyman Steve Englebright, Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine and Port Jefferson Village trustee Bruce Miller speak at a Dec. 9 press conference calling for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the electrification of public transportation, including the Long Island Rail Road. Photo by Rita J. Egan

Representatives from the national environmental advocacy group Sierra Club along with local representatives are calling for the electrification of Long Island’s transportation, especially its trains.

“This is a challenge, but we need to accept it.” —Charles Bevington

On Dec. 9, the Sierra Club was joined by local representatives at a press conference at the Long Island Rail Road’s Stony Brook train station. The event was part of the Get Set, Go Green! relay, where people from across the state, including Buffalo, Rochester, Lower Hudson Valley, New York City and Plattsburgh, are traveling to Albany on multiple modes of low-carbon transportation. The goal is to deliver a petition signed by thousands of New Yorkers to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) by Dec. 12.

The Dec. 9 event included a send-off for relayer Edgar Cid, 25, of Lindenhurst, who was set to take the 1:19 p.m. train from Stony Brook to Penn Station to deliver petitions to the next relayer in New York City. Cid said he was happy to participate as he realizes the importance of moving toward more electric-based transportation on the Island, including trains.

Charles Bevington, chair of Sierra Club Long Island Group, said so far more than 7,500 signatures have been collected and the hope is to get to 10,000.

“This is a challenge, but we need to accept it,” Bevington said. “We need to move forward on it.”

Mothers Out Front volunteer leader, Billii Roberti, talks about the benefits of electrifying school buses. Photo by Rita J. Egan

State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket), Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), Port Jefferson Village trustee Bruce Miller and Mothers Out Front volunteer leader Billii Roberti, of Huntington, joined Bevington and other environmental activists to support the relay.

The petition urges Cuomo to adopt a statewide target to reduce emissions 55 percent from transportation by 2035 in his 2020 State of the State address. According to Englebright, the largest amount of state greenhouse gas emissions, 36 percent, comes from transportation. He said the governor recently signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which sets a statewide goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. He added that for the state to reach the climate goals detailed in the act, a reduction of emissions must begin now.

The assemblyman said the frequency of hurricanes, invasion of species harmful to our ecosystems and warming waters that have destroyed lobsters point to being “in the midst already of a climate crisis.”

The act sets a goal for 70 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy within 11 years and 100 percent of the state’s electricity supply must be emissions free by 2040. Englebright said he is concerned that the LIRR is in the process of replacing its old diesel fleet with new diesel engines.

“That’s not only inconsistent with the new law, it is incoherent,” he said. “We have talked for years about electrifying the north line of the rail road, making it more efficient, making it possible to pull more cars off the roads and to use mass transit. This is an investment that we need to make into electrification, not into [20th]-century diesel locomotives.”

Three train branches transverse Brookhaven — Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma (including Greenport) and Montauk. Romaine said each of the branches depends on diesel at some point, and he and the Town Board have advocated converting to electrification since he entered office.

“The MTA is not spending the money that it should be spending on electrifying these lines,” he said. “Imagine less diesel flowing into our atmosphere because our lines are electrified.”

“It’s long overdue. We’ve relied on diesel since forever it seems like, except for the first [steam] locomotive, but it’s a hundred year old technology.” — Ed Romaine

Miller said he knows many from Calverton to Greenlawn commute by car to the Ronkonkoma line.

“This is completely environmentally inappropriate and unsustainable,” he said.

In addition to the electrification of trains, Roberti called for school districts and bus companies to transition to all-electric fleets by 2030 and asked the governor and state legislators to assist them with funding.

The activist cited health concerns from diesel fuel emissions including increased cancer-causing soot and incidences of pneumonia and asthma attacks.

For years, officials have pleaded for the electrification of the LIRR branches that require diesel. State Sen. Jim Gaughran (D-Northport) said in an email that he hears complaints about poor and insufficient service and realizes the environmental benefits of electrification.

“Electrification, including of the Oyster Bay and Port Jefferson lines, would greatly improve service and provide riders desperately needed relief,” Gaughran said. “It is also tremendously beneficial for our environment. I am not optimistic the MTA is taking the urgency of electrification seriously and I urge them to seriously consider electrification.”

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory officials recognize the environmental as well as other benefits of electrification of the LIRR.

“The proposed improvements to the LIRR, including purchases of new trains, electrification of the Port Jefferson tracks and the addition of a third track between Floral Park and Hicksville will all serve to increase the frequency of trains and the efficient use of clean energy for transportation,” said Bruce Stillman, CSHL president and CEO. “Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has a close relationship with Stony Brook University and improving rail transportation between our two institutions will help to advance science and education.”

Romaine said the rough estimate for electrification of the railroad was about $18 million a mile. There will be a need for a new rail yard, which the town already has plans in place, and electrification stations along the branches to ensure the rails are electrified along with other signal and communications upgrades.

“It’s an expensive project,” he said. “It’s long overdue. We’ve relied on diesel since forever it seems like, except for the first [steam] locomotive, but it’s a hundred year old technology.”

Jane Fasullo, former chair of the local Sierra Club, said the offset of the costs will be improved health, and in the long term as the cost of the infrastructure of wind and solar goes down, the cost of electrifying vehicles will go down.

“It’s one of those things where you put money into it today to save a lot of money later on,” Fasullo said.

In an email statement, LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said the railroad shares the Sierra Club’s concern.

“We recognize our service is one of the most significant ways that Long Islanders can lower their carbon footprint, and we strive to continuously improve our service delivery,” Donovan said. “Public transportation, even when powered by diesel, is greener per passenger mile than private, single-occupancy electric vehicles.”

A copy of the petition can be found at sc.org/55×35.

Simple Good in Port Jefferson offers zero waste and sustainable products. Photo by David Luces

Millions of people around the world demanded action from world leaders on climate change as part of the Global Climate Strike Sept. 20. The protests have put the ongoing crisis back in the forefront. 

Recently, New York lawmakers aimed to tackle the climate change issue head on, as they passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a bill that will aggressively target greenhouse gas emissions in the state. On Long Island, there are plans for two offshore wind projects, located off the East End and South Shore. The wind farms will provide close to 1,700 megawatts of energy, and are expected to power more than 1 million homes. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has mandated 9,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2035. 

 

Simple Good in Port Jefferson sells items made to be reusable or nontoxic to the environment. Photo from Melanie Gonzalez

While those goals are in the distant future, there are still things the average person can do on their own to help in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. 

“It all comes to educating people and making sure they are aware of these issues,” said Melanie Gonzalez, owner of Simple Good at 35 Chandler Square in Port Jefferson which offers a number of sustainable and zero waste items. 

Gonzalez said the inspiration for the store came after buying plastic toys for years for her son, Julian, when she noticed the toys would break easily and she was left with tons of plastic packaging. 

“I was like, ‘What happens to all this plastic and where does it go?’” she said. “I was totally ignorant … but once I learned the facts [on plastic waste], it was life changing.”

Since then, Gonzalez has been an advocate of reducing plastic waste and protecting the environment. She believes Long Island has moved in the right direction on climate change and plastic reduction, but it may also come down to changing people’s habits and behaviors. 

The Rocky Point resident said it could be as simple as switching your plastic toothbrush with alternative that is made out of bamboo, which is more cost effective and in turn better for the environment. 

Gonzalez said everybody should avoid single-use plastic items and recommended using your own utensils when ordering takeout food. She also spoke on the importance of composting and recycling. 

“People are frustrated about recycling,” she said. “Long Island isn’t the easiest place to recycle.”

Last year, the towns of Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington had a rude awakening about their recycling practices when China announced it would cut its intake of U.S. recyclables by a huge margin. Municipalities across the nation were affected. In just one example, Brookhaven Town has moved back to asking residents to separate their garbage.

Gonzalez said she remains optimistic that the climate change movement on the Island is on the right track. 

A non toxic dishwashing bar that is sold at Simple Good in Port Jeff. Image from Melanie Gonzalez

Elisabeth Van Roijen, vice president of the Sierra Club at Stony Brook University, said Long Island is a much better place environmentally than it has been in the past. 

With about 60 other SBU students, she attended the Global Climate Strike rally in New York City. The Sierra Club at SBU helps students gain experience in political activism as well as experience the outdoors first hand.   

“The experience as a whole was incredible,” she said. 

The senior at SBU said the plans for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and offshore wind is something she is hopeful for. 

“The only problem is that it takes time, but having a goal is good because it pushes us to achieve results faster,” Van Roijen said. 

The chemical engineering major added that getting to those goals will need behavior and culture changes. 

“We have to start teaching these things at a younger age, as it is much harder to break out of habits when you get older,” she said. “It comes down to being more mindful.”

Caithness Long Island approaches town about building new 600-megawatt plant

Port Jefferson Power Station. File photo by Alex Petroski

By Alex Petroski 

Another player has emerged to complicate the legal battle with Brookhaven Town and Port Jefferson Village in one corner and the Long Island Power Authority in the other.

Representatives from Caithness Energy LLC, an independent, privately held power producer with a Yaphank plant, went before Brookhaven’s board June 26 requesting permission to construct a 600-megawatt plant, which would be called Caithness Long Island II. This is not the first time, as the power company originally approached the town with plans for a power station in 2014.

“Caithness is seeking an amendment to the covenant and restrictions so it can utilize cleaner, more efficient equipment that recently became available,” said Michael Murphy during the June 26 hearing, an attorney representing Caithness.

“The new equipment has rapid response capability, thereby creating critical support for intermittent renewable energy resources.”

— Michael Murphy

In 2014, Caithness Energy had plans approved by the Brookhaven Town to construct a new 750-megawatt plant in Yaphank powered by two gas-powered turbines and a steam generator. Both Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) and Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) voted against the 2014 proposal, though it passed 5-2.

The project has been on hold ever since as energy demands on Long Island are projected to decrease, according to recent annual reports from PSEG Long Island. Then, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) mandated in August 2016 that 50 percent of New York’s electricity needs come from renewable energy sources by the year 2030.

The 600-megawatt power plant would be constructed on 81 acres of vacant land zoned for the use based on the 2014 approval. The proposal has several differences from the 2014 plans in addition to the reduced energy output including a reduction from two exhaust stacks to one; use of newer, more efficient technology; and a reduction from two steam turbines to one.

“It creates a platform for renewable energy,” Murphy said. “The new equipment has rapid response capability, thereby creating critical support for intermittent renewable energy resources. So, this facility will not compete, in essence, with solar and wind.”

The request comes as Port Jefferson Village and the town have said a settlement is nearing in an eight-year-long legal fight with LIPA over the utility company’s contention its Port Jeff plant’s property taxes are over assessed based on its decreasing energy demand. The settlement would smooth the impact of a potential substantial loss of revenue for the village, Port Jefferson School District, Port Jefferson Free Library and Port Jefferson Fire Department based on a reduced assessment of the plant. It would also prevent the village from being held liable for years of back pay should it have chosen to play out the legal battle in court and lost rather than settling the case. The village has argued a way to make good with LIPA over its decreasingly needed plant could be to increase its output capacity. If approved, the Caithness II plant would theoretically kill plans to repower the Port Jefferson plant.

However, according to Caithness President Ross Ain, LIPA has made no commitment to purchase power from the company should a second facility be constructed in Yaphank. It does purchase power from the first Caithness plant, with a 350-megawatt natural gas fire power generating facility operating in Yaphank since 2009.

The public hearing drew comments from those in favor of the proposal, many of whom being Longwood school district residents who would likely see a reduction in property taxes, similar to what Port Jeff residents enjoy currently for housing the Port Jefferson Power Station.

“There is no denying that these [revenue] reductions will cause significant hardships to all segments of our community, which is also your community.”

— Margot Garant

Environmental groups and other residents opposed the plan, as did Port Jefferson Village Mayor Margot Garant and state Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) each submitted statements to be read into the record by Cartright against the proposal and urging the board to vote it down. Garant has taken to social media to urge Port Jeff residents to submit written comments to the town on the proposal.

“There is no denying that these [revenue] reductions will cause significant hardships to all segments of our community, which is also your community,” Garant said in her letter read by Cartright, referencing the impending LIPA settlement. “But at the end of these reductions, our community would still be left with an operating power plant which could produce a significant amount in tax revenues.”

The village mayor painted a dark picture for Port Jeff should the proposal earn board approval.

“The construction of a Caithness II facility will have the inevitable effect of pushing our community off the economic cliff at the end of the proposed period of gradual reductions, while leaving us to deal with an enormous, closed, unusable industrial site which will need serious environmental remediation,” she said.

A representative from Sierra Club Long Island, a local chapter of the national nonprofit dedicated to environmental advocacy, spoke out against Caithness II during the hearing.

“The Sierra Club strongly opposes any attempt to construct a new gas plant on Long Island, and we oppose the Caithness II proposal regardless of the technology involved,” said Shay O’Reilly, an organizer for the nonprofit. “It is absurd to argue that building more fracked gas infrastructure will allow us to meet our clean energy and pollution reduction goals.”

Jack Kreiger, a spokesperson for the town, said he did not know when the board would vote on the proposal.

Maria Hoffman, Jane Fasullo, chair of the Long Island chapter of the Sierra Club, and George Hoffman attended the People’s Climate March in Washington D.C. Photo from Maria Hoffman

By George and Maria Hoffman

Two years ago the United States was the leading voice on global climate action at the Paris conference. Then came the November election and this week the new president will be deciding whether or not the U.S. will even remain in the Paris climate agreement.

Facing such a policy sea change, we decided to travel to Washington D.C. April 29 and join with more than 200,000 people from across the U.S. to show our support for continued government action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously warming
our planet.

At 2 a.m. our journey began, meeting a bus at Stony Brook University that was chartered by the local chapter of the Sierra Club. There we were joined by dozens of Long Islanders who like us were compelled to travel to Washington and take part in the People’s Climate March.

The bus was filled with college students, retirees and people of all ages in between, who joined together because of their concern about our planet.

We arrived at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in the early hours of the morning, converging on Washington with hundreds of other buses filled with people from other states across the U.S. There was a friendly, small-town camaraderie as we were given instructions by march organizers about the day’s events and where we were to meet up by the Capitol building.

It was heartening to see so many people who were willing to wake up in the middle of the night to travel hundreds of miles to the Capitol for the purpose of using the power of our numbers to show our leaders that the issue of climate change needs action now.

As the sun climbed the morning sky, the April temperatures started to feel like summer, eventually reaching a record 91 degrees Fahrenheit degrees. But the marchers were not discouraged by the heat and marched from the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House with signs and banners supporting clean energy, staying in the Paris agreement and warnings that our seas were rising and the planet was in jeopardy.

As we walked to the White House, we noticed there were a lot of people carrying signs about the effect of climate change on honey bees. As beekeepers ourselves, we know that the effects of climate change—from extreme weather fluctuations to earlier flowering times—can have a devastating impact on both pollination and the survival of local bee colonies and wild pollinators.

One of the most powerful moments of the march happened as we passed the Newseum, the museum dedicated to the five freedoms of the First Amendment, and we saw etched on its facade the solid and simple words of the First Amendment that gave “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” To read this amendment carved in stone before us as we exercised the very freedoms made real by those words was profound and moving.

After the march was over and we returned to our buses for the long drive back to Long Island, many of us shared stories about the day’s events and how energized we were by taking part in a show of strength in our nation’s capital in support of continued action on climate change. 

After almost 24 hours from the start of our journey, we pulled back into the university. We were tired from our long march down Pennsylvania Avenue. But a spark returned as we spoke of that moment as we passed the Newseum and saw the words of the First Amendment. That moment seemed to be fundamental both to the day and to what it meant be an American citizen. We had peaceably assembled, and petitioned our leaders to accept the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and to take action to prevent further harm.

Ryan Madden from the Long Island Progressive Coalition leads a march calling for renewable energy in the form of wind. Photo from Ryan Madden

Scientists and politicians are relied upon to do the bulk of the work to reduce the effects and pace of climate change, but local activist organizations on Long Island are taking on the burden as well.

“I think it’s really important for grassroots and local solutions to tackle this crisis — to be at the forefront of the solutions,” Ryan Madden, with the Long Island Progressive Coalition said. “A lot of the problems we see in this country, in New York State and on Long Island, whether it’s rampant income inequality, access to education, just issues of local pollution and ailments related to the combustion of fossil fuels, all of this connects into a larger system that informs why climate change is a problem in the first place.”

The LIPC, a community-based grassroots organization that works on a range of issues related to sustainable development as well as achieving social, racial and economic justice, has a program for improving energy efficiency. The group helps low- to moderate-income homeowners take advantage of free energy assessments and obtain financial resources to be able to go through energy-efficient retrofits and ultimately help reduce carbon footprints. The organization also recently entered the solar arena.

Members of Sustainable Long Island’s youth-staffed farmers market in New Cassel. Photo from Gabrielle Lindau

“It’s part of a larger push to democratize our energy system so that communities have a say in the build out of renewable energy and have ownership or control over the systems themselves,” Madden said. “We’re pushing for constructive and far-reaching changes, which is what we think is needed in this time.”

Madden added he has fears about the future because of comments President Donald Trump (R) has made in the past regarding climate change and his previously stated belief it is a hoax. Trump signed an executive order March 28 that served as a rollback of the Clean Power Plan, an initiative meant to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. The order infringes on commitments to the Paris Agreement, a universal, legally binding global climate deal.

“We’re trying to meet that with really bold, visionary climate policy that has a wide range of economic transformative impacts, while also remaining on the ground helping homeowners and institutions make that switch through energy efficiency and renewable energy,” Madden said.

Other organizations like the Sierra Club, a nonprofit, are also focused on renewable energy, but in the form of offshore wind.

“Offshore wind is the best way to meet our need for large-scale renewable energy that can help us fight climate change and provide good jobs for New Yorkers, but we aren’t used to getting our energy this way in the United States,” Sierra Club organizer Shay O’Reilly said. “Instead, we’re used to relying on dirty fossil fuels, and our energy markets and production systems are centered on these ways of producing electricity.”

Gordian Raacke, with Renewable Energy Long Island also works on this front. He and his group advocated for and eventually convinced the Long Island Power Authority to do a study on offshore wind power.

“January of this year, LIPA agreed to sign a contract for New York’s first, and the country’s largest, offshore wind project,” he said.

New York Renews hosted a town hall to get community members together to talk about climate change issues. Photo from Ryan Madden

Deepwater Wind will build and operate the 90-megawatt project 30 miles east of Montauk Point in the Atlantic Ocean. The project will generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes.

In 2012, the group also commissioned a study to evaluate whether Long Island could generate 100 percent of its annual electricity consumption from renewable energy sources. The study, The Long Island Clean Electricity Vision, showed that it would not only be possible, but also economically feasible.

Currently, the LIPC has a campaign to pass the Climate and Community Protection Act in New York State, which would decarbonize all sectors of New York’s economy by 2050, redirect 40 percent of all state funding to disadvantaged communities — which would decrease pollution over decades — and ensure a transition away from fossil fuels.

These topics and others are taught in classes at Stony Brook University under its Sustainability Studies Program. Areas of study include environmental humanities, anthropology, geology, chemistry, economy, environmental policies and planning. Students do hands-on and collaborative work and take on internships in the field. They also clear trails and develop businesses to help increase sustainability among other hands-on initiatives.

“Our mission is to develop students who become leaders in sustainability and help to protect the Earth,” Heidi Hutner, director of the program said. “Climate change and pollution is the most important issue facing us today. We have to find a way to live on this planet and not totally destroy it and all of its creatures. Our students are skilled in many different ways, going into nongovernmental or not-for-profit organizations, becoming law professors, lawyers, journalists, scientists, educators, but all focused on the environment. A former student of ours is the sustainability director at Harvard Medical School.”

Students from the program organized to march in the People’s Climate March in 2014, and will be doing so again April 29. The purpose of the march is to stand up to the Trump administration’s proposed environmental policies.

Students and staff at East Islip High School work with Sustainable Long Island to build a rain garden. Photo from Gabrielle Lindau

Undergraduates in the program also work closely with environmentally active local legislators like state Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket), and county Legislators Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) and William “Doc” Spencer (D-Centerport). There is also a Sierra Club on campus.

The LIPC regularly hosts round tables to show other environmental groups what it’s up to and town halls to let community members share their stories and even visit assembly members to lobby for support. Sustainable Long Island, a nonprofit founded in 1998 that specialized in advancing economic development, environmental health and social equality for Long Island, also focuses on low-income communities through its programs.

Food equality and environmental health are the group’s biggest areas of concentration because according to Gabrielle Lindau, the group’s director of communications, the issues are tied to each other.

“There is a polarization here on Long Island,” she said. “We have extremely rich communities, and then we have extremely poor communities.”

According to Lindau, 283,700 people receive emergency food each year, so Sustainable LI builds community gardens and hosts youth-staffed farmers markets to combat the problem.

“It’s a game-changer for low income communities,” she said. “These communities gardens are great because they give people access to fresh, healthy food, and it also puts the power in their hands to find food and also, the learning skills to be able to grow that food. It’s also a paid program, so it’s giving them an opportunity to earn what they’re working toward.”

The youth-staffed farmers markets, which began in 2010, have been a real catalyst for change in communities like Farmingdale, Roosevelt, Freeport, Flanders, New Castle and Wyandanch where access to fresh food is not a given.

Children help Sustainable Long Island build a community garden. Photo from Gabrielle Lindau

“We have so much farming going on out east here on Long Island and I don’t think people who live here ever step back to look at all the food we have here in our own backyard,” Lindau said. “These markets are an incredible program because they’re not only teaching kids in communities about agriculture where they wouldn’t have necessarily had the opportunity to do that, but they’re also teaching them financial literacy skills, and, at the same time, they’re bringing in healthy food items to their neighbors.”

Shameika Hanson a New York community organizer on Long Island for Mothers Out Front, an organization that works to give women a voice for change — empowering and providing them with skills and resources to get decision makers and elected officials to act on their behalf — does specific work with climate change, also calling for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. As a national organization, the topics range depending on the needs of an area from getting methane gas leaks plugged, to stopping oil trains for moving through the area, to getting involved in carbon offsets. Specifically on Long Island, women are creating a task force to ensure the drinking water quality across the island is standardized.

“Democracy doesn’t work without civic engagement,” Hanson said. “There’s a need for a conversation to happen that is united. Even though the water authorities are separate, the water isn’t.”

Sustainable Long Island also works on building rain gardens to reduce stormwater runoff into local waters.

“We’re in a dire situation here on Long Island when it comes to our aquifers,” Lindau said. “We have an intense amount of nitrogen that’s already going into the ground.”

The nonprofit works with the Environmental Resource Management Foundation and PSEG Foundation and builds rain gardens like the one at the Cove Animal Rescue in Glen Cove and others in East Islip and Long Beach.

“It’s about educating communities on the importance of the rain garden and why green infrastructure practices are pivotal for environmental health on Long Island moving forward,” Lindau said. “If we don’t have clean drinking water, we’re going to be in trouble, if we don’t have usable soil to plant in, we’re not going to have farms growing the produce we need to survive and if we don’t have that produce, then we’re not going to be able to bring food into these low-income communities for people who can’t get it otherwise. They’re all connected in a number of different ways and a lot of them root back to health.”

Students in Stony Brook University’s Sustainability Studies Program participate in the 2014 People’s Climate March in NYC. Photo from Heidi Hutner

Sustainable Long Island has done work with local municipalities following superstorms like Hurricane Sandy. They helped communities rebuild, hosted peer-to-peer education meetings to better prepare locals and business owners for another devastating storm and provided job training to bring businesses back.

“A big part of this is going into communities and educating them and helping to advocate in order to facilitate change,” Lindau said. “Working with other groups is extremely important as well. We’re not a lone wolf in the nonprofit world — we not only find it important to work with governments and other municipalities — but to connect with other nonprofits who have something unique to offer as well.”

Melanie Cirillo, with the Peconic Land Trust, reiterated the need for local organizations to team up. The Peconic Land Trust conserves open space like wetlands, woodlands and farmland. It keeps an eye on water quality and infrastructure like Forge River in Mastic, which is a natural sea sponge that absorbs storm surge.

“Wetlands are key in so many of our waterfront properties,” she said. “We have a finite amount of drinking water that we need to protect for our own health. The protection of land is integral to the protection of the water.”

She said although every organization may have a bit of a different focus, they’re all working under the same umbrella and premise, with the same goal in mind: maintaining the health of Long Island.

“I think it’s important for groups to have the ability to bring people together, especially because the impact of climate change affects people in a lot of different ways, whether it’s high energy costs, the impact of superstorms like Hurricane Sandy, sea level rise or coastal erosion, or ocean acidification that impacts people’s fishery and economic way of life,” Madden said. “We have to meet the immediate visceral needs of people — of communities and workers — but we also need to be thinking decades ahead on what it will take to decarbonize our entire economic system. It’s really important for groups to be oriented toward that long term focus, because this is an all hands on deck situation.”

This version corrects the spelling of Stony Brook University’s Sustainability Studies Program Director Heidi Hutner’s last name.