It was a perfect source of energy—clean, renewable, safe, and so abundant it would be “too cheap to meter.” Sadly, Long Island eventually learned the truth about nuclear power and is still paying the price for the Shoreham atomic plant, a monstrosity that never produced a watt of usable energy and eventually cost $23.5 billion. It is a cautionary tale salient today as the state rushes headlong into a “Green New Deal” that depends on two intermittent sources, wind and solar—both needing controversial battery storage facilities—and, incredibly, nuclear power.
South Shore Press reporter Robert Chartuk was on the ground covering the Shoreham debacle and shares some memories from the early 1980s when opposition to the plant peaked and the state stepped in to shut it down.
The leak at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor in 1979 energized the opposition, and they came out in force to protest the nuclear plant in their own backyard. They picketed the Long Island Lighting Company and the county legislature, which began to heed their warnings that the island could not be safely evacuated if something went wrong. Taking up their cause was Greg Blass, a dynamic lawmaker from eastern Suffolk who was straight out of central casting for the role of nuclear antagonist. Soon, all but one of the 18 legislators were on board, including County Executive Peter Fox Cohalan, who would live up to his middle name later in the saga. The lone holdout was Lou Howard, who argued for the necessity of a large-scale power plant for a growing population and blanched at the thought of throwing away the hundreds of millions invested in the project so far.
LILCO, the despised utility, pushed on, led by its chairman, William “The Cat” Catacosinos. The headlines roared when the diesel generators needed to run the plant in case of an emergency broke down. Deputy County Executive Frank Jones called them “Snap, Crackle, and Pop.” The incident steeled the opposition and moved Cohalan to deny county participation in the evacuation plan the utility needed for an operating permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Cat said no worries; he would run his own plan and set out to show how hundreds of thousands of people could get off an island with only one way out.
Without Suffolk's participation, LILCO’s evacuation drill was a farce, elevating the issue to the state’s biggest wig, Gov. Mario Cuomo, who announced himself in opposition. President Ronald Reagan still believed in the allure of nuclear energy and sent emissaries from Washington to lobby the local powers that be. It would be to no avail, as Blass and his majority in the legislature kept the issue in the spotlight.
Growing up on Long Island, l knew people who worked at the massive plant. Stories were commonplace of crews tearing out previous work only to build it again, some of it done maliciously while some on the orders of the regulatory commission, which mandated numerous design changes in the wake of Three Mile Island. The plant turned into a cash cow for the construction trades and the unions and took 19 years to complete. What started out as a $75 million project turned into a $6 billion black hole. Tax dollars collected from LILCO ratepayers in Nassau, Suffolk, and the Rockaway Peninsula, which it also served, flowed into Suffolk, Brookhaven Town, and the Shoreham-Wading River School District, the behemoth plant’s host. My home team of Center Moriches played soccer and baseball against Shoreham-Wading River, and we couldn’t help but notice they always had new uniforms, the best fields, and, what we thought was ridiculous, oxygen on the sidelines to give their players a boost. We beat them anyway.
At some point during the fiasco, The Cat announced that if the county didn’t want him to open the plant, he would stop paying taxes. The conundrum led to a meeting called by Supervisor Henrietta Acampora in the basement of the old Brookhaven Town Hall in Patchogue. It seemed that some of the legislators were balking at joining a town lawsuit to force the utility to pony up the tax money. “Henny,” as she was affectionately known, was a tough customer, having served in the Navy and got into a screaming match with Legislator Joe Rizzo, the intensity of which haunts me to this day.
Dave Wilmott was the publisher of the newspaper l worked for at the time, Suffolk Life, and he was an ardent Shoreham foe. He wrote many an editorial against the false promises of Nu-Clear energy and dispatched me to cover every aspect of the controversy. I worked alongside reporter Peter Scully, an environmentalist who went on to serve in high-level government positions. Despite widespread opposition and a belief that the end was near for a plant opposed by the governor, county executive, the legislature (except for Lou Howard), Suffolk’s 10 towns, and a vast majority of its populace, The Cat went ahead and loaded the plant with nuclear fuel and fired that mother up. This was a monumental moment in Shoreham’s history as the embattled utility chairman proved it could actually work, but in doing so, contaminated the plant’s innards adding millions of dollars to the decommissioning costs.
Word leaked out that County Executive Cohalan might be softening his Shoreham stance and Dave Wilmott sent me to go see him. During a meeting in his office with Frank Jones, coiner of the famous “Snap, Crackle, and Pop” derision, Cohalan assured me up and down that he wasn’t wavering one bit and remained steadfast in his opposition to the plant. As it turned out, this would be one of the last stories l would write for Suffolk Life. After four years of journalism, l was offered a job by State Senator Ken LaValle, an official who, among many, l sourced for my coverage of the Shoreham mess. My last day at the paper was a Friday, deadline day, and my final stories were done by early afternoon, including the Cohalan opposition piece. l had a foot out the door on my way to a nice weekend before starting that Monday with the Senator when the phone rang.
It was the county executive’s office informing us that Peter “The Fox” Cohalan had changed his mind and was now in favor of Shoreham. That pretty much wrecked my long weekend, and l stayed at the keyboard reporting on that seismic betrayal until midnight. Wilmott was incensed, running a front cover illustration of The Fox with a long Pinocchio nose. Cohalan would go on to become a county judge and pushed for naming the court complex in Central Islip after his dad.
Shortly after coming on board with Senator LaValle, l was summoned along with his entire staff to Albany for an important announcement. He would be sponsoring the creation of the Long Island Power Authority, a new public entity that would take over LILCO and shutter the nuclear plant for good. After writing about it from one side of the coin, I wrote about it from another: officially announcing this pivotal turning point in the Shoreham battle. The deal was consummated by Gov. Cuomo, who assured the stockholders of the Long Island Lighting Company that they would be made whole. Instead of just the local ratepayers, the entire state would now be on the hook for the Shoreham albatross. Somewhere in the reams of paperwork required for a deal of this magnitude was a little item that the teams of bureaucrats seemed to overlook: William “The Cat” Catacosinos walked away with a tidy Golden Parachute, a gift from the people of New York to the tune of $42 million, while his officers pocketed $25 million more.
The ratepayers are still shelling out for the Nu-Clear plant that would provide energy too cheap to meter. Reports last year revealed that more than $300 million is still owed, bringing the total cost of this sorry chapter in Long Island’s energy history to $23.5 billion. This was the reason l was so astounded to hear Gov. Kathy Hochul announce that nuclear power will play a key role in the state’s energy future as a backup to the solar and wind projects currently in the works. These include Sunrise Wind, a Long Island project now in the crosshairs of President Trump’s anti-wind Executive Orders.