![]() ![]() ![]() According to Karen Young, media representative for National Grid, the project will meet the city’s growing energy needs and will be an overall benefit to the communities it serves. National Grid is quick to stress that the pipeline won’t introduce additional gas into the city, but will instead improve the circulation of the city’s existing gas. A 1993 New York City Health Department study found that Greenpoint had the highest rates of adult stomach cancer and childhood leukemia, along with a host of other ailments.įirst begun in 2017, the North Brooklyn Pipeline (once fully operational) will pump fracked natural gas under the streets of Brownsville, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and Williamsburg concluding at an expanded liquefied natural gas facility in Greenpoint, located on the banks of the polluted Newtown Creek. The spill has left a lasting mark on the residents in the community. The spill was not detected until 1978, and cleanup efforts did not begin in earnest until 1990. At least 50 percent more oil polluted the soil of Greenpoint than was spilled in the Exxon Valdez catastrophe. Beginning in 1950, oil refineries owned by ExxonMobil, BP, and ChevronTexaco leaked nearly 30 million gallons of oil into nearby Newtown Creek, causing one of the largest oil spills to occur on U.S. “We cannot go on like this, living life in fear because of big companies doing harm to our communities.”Ī longtime resident of Cooper Park, a public-housing complex of approximately 701 families located just a stone’s throw away from the facility, EW is no stranger to the environmental injustices that have plagued his community. ![]() “This pipeline, I looked at the schematics, it goes through all the Black and brown communities, and ends up in ours, which is a Black and brown community,” he said during his hearing testimony. To him, the racial disparity of the pipeline’s planned path could not be more apparent. In this case, as in so many others, vulnerable communities of color will suffer the most impacts from dirty-energy pollution.Įlisha Fye, who prefers to go by “EW” and is African American, has lived in Greenpoint since 1953. The opposition to the North Brooklyn Pipeline is part of a series of struggles against the building of fossil fuel infrastructure amid the climate crisis, similar to fights across the country over the Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Line 3 pipelines, as well as several successful attempts to shut down coal-fired power plants. “These communities have been speaking up against it, and National Grid just keeps building.” “The pipeline goes through environmental-justice communities with incredibly high risk for asthma,” said Lee Ziesche, community engagement coordinator with the Sane Energy Project, a grassroots environmental-justice group. The fight against the expansion of the Greenpoint facility is only the latest chapter in a protracted battle between the giant utility company and an alliance of community and environmental activists, who fear that the introduction of more fossil fuel infrastructure in Brooklyn will have detrimental environmental and health effects on working-class communities of color. Although National Grid assures that the project is safe, opponents contend that the project will dangerously increase air pollution and will impact the community’s public health and quality of life.įor opponents, the Greenpoint Energy Center project is the crown jewel of National Grid’s seven-mile-long Metropolitan Natural Gas Reliability Project, colloquially known as the North Brooklyn Pipeline. National Grid’s proposed Greenpoint Energy Center project will expand its existing facility by adding equipment that transforms liquid gas into vapor. A chorus of residents, community leaders, environmental activists, and nearly a dozen elected officials (including representatives for Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez and Carolyn Maloney) blasted the project, raising concerns over the potential risks it could pose for the surrounding communities. Last Wednesday, during a contentious virtual hearing, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) allowed public comment on the proposed plan by the multinational utility company National Grid to expand its gas storage facility in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York. Neighbors and climate activists rallied against the North Brooklyn Pipeline last summer. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |