Environmentalists and Broadwater Energy butted heads again Thursday, this time over a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency about the planned liquefied natural gas barge's emissions.

Adrienne Esposito, of the Citizen's Campaign for the Environment, said Broadwater asked the EPA to grant its 1,200-foot-long LNG terminal an exemption from federal clean-air regulations.

"We're not asking for any exemption," Broadwater Vice President John Hritcko said. The barge, which would float in the Long Island Sound 9 miles off the shore of Wading River, presents the state Department of Environmental Conservation with a new challenge because air emissions have never been monitored at a facility on the water, Hritcko said. The company asked the EPA to tell the DEC how to measure the emissions, he said.

However, Esposito said Broadwater's lawyers asked in the same letter for the security zone, which encompasses the barge's immediate vicinity, to be excluded from monitoring.

"They want to be able to pump out more emissions into the air simply because they think no one will be allowed in the safety and security zone," Esposito said.

Hritcko, meanwhile, maintained the claims weren't true. "The New York State DEC and the federal EPA set the air-quality standards and we will meet whatever standard they establish."

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