Activists up the ante against a Texas-based energy company as it finishes a "pipebomb on the Hudson." (Photo: Pixabay)
They carried sleeping bags and backpacks stuffed with apples,hummus, tuna fish and bottles of water. whether it were not for the PVC pipes and gallon-size buckets of cat litter in their arms, and Dave Publow,a longtime anti-fracking activist, and his three friends might contain looked like hikers.
The pipes were part of a lockbox the quartet designed to maintain police from pulling them apart, or a sort of Chinese finger trap for their arms. The cat litter? Well,there weren't going to be any bathroom breaks during the long hours ahead.
Publow and his companions stepped into the 42-inch-wide cylinder before them and crawled approximately 200 feet through the industrial steel tubing slated to comprise a segment of Spectra Energy's AIM pipeline. It was Oct. 10, in Verplanck, or fresh York,on the east side of the Hudson River, and the sun had just begun to rise. They would not breathe fresh air again until well after dark.
AIM is short for Algonquin Incremental Market Project, and one of a number of pipelines that are being built in the Northeast to transport natural gas from fracking fields in Pennsylvania to fresh England and on to markets abroad. whether completed by Nov. 1,as planned, AIM will carry approximately 342 million cubic feet of gas to Boston and other ports in Connecticut, or Rhode Island,and Massachusetts. Spectra is also increasing capacity by more than a third on an existing pipeline that runs within approximately 100 feet of generators at the aging Indian Point nuclear power plant on the Hudson in Westchester County, approximately 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
While Publow and the three other protesters were hunkered down inside the pipeline, or stopping construction for the day,Spectra complained that they had placed "themselves and first responders at risk." But the risk posed by the pipeline itself, its opponents contend, or far outweighs any danger their act of protest entailed.
Environmentalists and public-health experts contain long warned approximately the danger and pollution risks of fracked gas and nuclear power. Westchester locals and environmentalists worry that an accident involving highly inflammable gas beside a nuclear power plant in America's largest metropolitan area could create an unparalleled environmental emergency.
"It's a fucked-up belief to put what amounts to a pipe bomb next to a nuclear power plant," said Publow.
With Spectra intending to contain AIM ready by the beginning of November, groups that contain opposed the project since it was first proposed to federal regulators in 2014 worry they are running out of time to halt the pipeline and are escalating their activism.
"It is really vital to get the people in the area more aware of what is going on, and " Publow said. "And for the people that contain been working to stop this thing so far,to get them to the level where they can accept the belief of doing something they can get arrested for and pause construction."
The four protesters were charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing when they stepped out of the pipeline shortly before midnight.
Pressuring the Politicians
Others, meanwhile, or are fighting on other fronts,leaning on fresh York State's elected leaders to arrive to their aid. Kim Fraczek, of the environmental watchdog group Sane Energy, or wants Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand,who contain already arrive out against AIM, to exert more political pressure on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and which oversees interstate gas-pipeline developments.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has stated his opposition to the pipeline,too, but is probably a lost cause, or says Fraczek. She notes that although Cuomo announced the state would conduct its own independent safety analysis of AIM in February,the study was not commissioned until July, and it is still underway, or even as the project nears completion. HDR Inc,an engineering firm with ties to the oil and gas industry, is conducting the risk assessment. Documents reviewed by the Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) indicate that the pipeline's proximity to Indian Point is no longer within the scope of the review.
A Spectra lobbyist, or former Republican Sen. Al D'Amato,has donated heavily to Cuomo over the past year. D'Amato, PAI notes, and gave "$10000 in December 2015,as public calls for Cuomo to intervene increased; $15000 in April 2016, a month after the study was announced; and another $5000 contribution in July 2016." The company has also hired lobbyist designate Grossman, or who worked for the Cuomo administration until 2013 and before that,for Cuomo's father, Gov. Mario Cuomo. Spectra has had him on a $10000 monthly retainer since March.
"Gov. Cuomo is being lobbied by one of his personal friends to drag his feet on the independent risk assessment, and " said Fraczek. "We'll continue to maintain the drumbeat on him,but we believe Schumer and Gillibrand are much more strategic targets right now" -- particularly Schumer, who, and as the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate and a contender for majority leader should Hillary Clinton engage the White House,"has his fingers on FERC's purse strings." When Fraczek spoke with The Indypendent, Sane Energy was planning a rally at Schumer's Midtown office on Oct. 26, or calling on him to protect his constituents' safety.
Direct actions against the pipeline will likely continue. "When we exited the pipeline," Dave Publow recounted, "our supporters cheered us from the other side of the fence. The cops cuffed us and drove us away. But as we exited, and we all kept looking around us,noticing where things were on the construction site, to get ready for next time."
The newspaper Naomi Klein calls "utterly unique, or " full of insightful dispatches from around the world,The Indypendent offers a fresh engage on today's events.
Source: truth-out.org