NYS preserves 750 acres around Shoreham nuclear power plant for state forest

Nearly 750 acres of undeveloped coastal wetlands and woodlands surrounding the defunct Shoreham nuclear reactor will be permanently preserved as a state forest, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials announced Thursday.

The land is one of the last remaining parcels of open space on the Long Island Sound estuary, officials said. It includes sand and gravel beaches, dunes, 100-foot bluffs, wetlands, tidal creeks, shrub swamps and mixed hardwood forests of oak, heath, hickory, pine and beech.

"We’re here today to celebrate the permanent protection and ecological conservation of this vital coastal landscape," DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton said Thursday afternoon during an online news conference.

The land provides critical habitat to shorebirds such as osprey and endangered piping plovers, she said, as well as many other marine and terrestrial species.

The DEC bought the property from National Grid for $28.25 million, with contributions from the Long Island Sound Partnership, the 1996 Clean Water Clean Air Bond Act and about $21 million in funds from the state Clean Water Infrastructure Act.

The acquisition will ensure that "the Shoreham forest will be forever wild," said Nina Leonhardt, acting director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society.

It is the largest DEC land acquisition by far on Long Island, according to the state agency. In 2002, the state bought 225 acres of woodland, beachfront and fields in Riverhead, which became Hallock State Park Preserve.

The newly created Shoreham Pine Barrens State Forest will include hiking trails and public access to the beach. Officials didn't say Thursday when it will be open to the public. 

The property was once owned by the Long Island Lighting Co., which started construction on the Shoreham nuclear plant in 1973.

But in the next 20 years, the power plant generated more controversy than power. Opponents argued its location, on relatively narrow Long Island with few roads out, would leave hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the event of a nuclear accident. In June 1979, three months after the Three Mile Island disaster, more than 15,000 protesters from Long Island and far beyond protested at the site, which was still under construction. Opposition continued for years after, erupting again in the wake of the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. It was shut down in 1987 without ever having sold any electricity and decommissioned in 1994.

The plant cost $5.5 billion to build and another $181.5 million to decommission, and Long Islanders were left to pay those costs through surcharges on their utility bills for decades after.

The DEC has been signaling its interest in buying the property since at least 2016, when the agency listed it in its open space conservation plan.

Protecting this undeveloped land was also a long-sought goal for environment groups including the Long Island Pine Barrens Society and The Nature Conservancy, as well as for Suffolk County Legis. Steve Englebright (D-Setauket).

John Turner, one of the founders and a longtime board member of the Pine Barrens Society, said the site is teeming with wildlife: wood frogs in ephemeral spring pools, scarlet tanagers, red-eyed vireos and ovenbirds, among many others in the hundreds of acres of forest and wetlands. The size of the parcel makes excellent habitat for birds and other creatures that need a larger territory, Turner said.

"It's really a fantastic acquisition," he added. 

"This heroic conservation achievement has been dreamt of for years," Englebright, a former state assemblyman, said in a statement after the DEC's announcement. "Going forward, the nearly 750-acre parcel consisting of a rare, unspoiled, large coastal forest will help buffer the east end from being overdeveloped, preserve Suffolk’s natural history heritage, support ecotourism, and conserve the source area of our purest drinking water."

Long before white settlers arrived, the land was inhabited for thousands of years by the Setauket people. Archaeologists surveying the property around the power plant before construction began found dozens of stone projectile points and other artifacts. Split Rock, a collection of glacial boulders on the property, was a "very important site for the indigenous tribes on Long Island," Turner said. 

"Many view it as a sacred place and one that absolutely must be preserved and protected," Jane Alcorn, past president of the Wading River Historical Society, told Newsday in an interview.