The potential dangers of Hydrofracking, and how a local movement has been urgently trying to stop the SPECTRA pipeline construction.
When construction for the SPECTRA pipeline began last year, the news instantly became a hot-button topic due to the calamitous potential a hydrofracking pipeline creates, all the more in an incredibly busy residential/business area like the West Village.
New Yorkers began to deliberate on the $1.2 billion project – a “high-pressure natural gas delivery system” which is designed to efficiently bring out millions of barrels of hydrofracked gas. The problem? The process has been proven to be environmentally dangerous, toxic, and it poses what many believe is a highly likely threat of contaminating water, to the point of being able to light your running faucet water on fire. (See video below, before the Q&A transcript.)
We recently had a dialogue with OTP spokesperson Patrick Robbins, who was kind enough to give us a more detailed breakdown of the situation, why people should take the seriousness of the matter to heart and other details in relation to finding renewable or alternative energy sources.
WikaMag: For the record, can you state the original start date of Occupy The Pipeline?
Patrick Robbins: Occupy the Pipeline began in the summer of 2012.
Can you quickly state for those who have are unaware of potential environmental dangers that Hydrofracking poses, particularly in the areas that will be on the pipeline path?
Certainly. By now, many people are familiar with the dangers of hydrofracking at the point of extraction, at the drill sites. Fracking chemicals can travel underground in ways that are impossible to monitor, with terrible consequences for the local water supply (in 2011, during a city council hearing on the risks to groundwater if we allow fracking in New York State, Councilmember Gennaro asked a DEP scientist point blank whether contamination to the NYC watershed was a problem that any amount of money could solve. The scientist’s reply was immediate: “absolutely not”). Reports of contaminated ground water and health problems in the surrounding areas have become commonplace.
What isn’t so commonly understood is the risk at the point of distribution. Pipeline oversight in this country is basically a joke, and in the absence of any real oversight, pipelines leak, break or explode.
“We see the SPECTRA issue as one battle in a larger war. We are hopeful that we can still stop the SPECTRA pipeline.” – Patrick Robbins, spokesperson for Occupy The Pipeline
See, for instance, the San Bruno explosion in 2008. Such risk cannot be countenanced in a high-density residential area like the West Village, where the SPECTRA pipeline has been constructed, mere feet from a children’s playground. Furthermore, the gas that this pipeline will carry will expose all New Yorkers with higher levels of radon gas. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, and is present in all natural gas. However, NYC has previously obtained gas from Texas and Louisiana, from shale beds with an inherently lower radon content. This gas also travels further, giving the radon more time to break down. By contrast, the gas delivered by the SPECTRA pipeline will come from the northeast, from shale beds with 70 times the radon content and not nearly as much time to break down. It is not appropriate to ask New Yorkers to take on further health risks at a time when many New Yorkers are struggling to meet healthcare costs as it is.
In October, the Guardian covered one of your peaceful protests in the West Village, and it was reported that neither offices of Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Councilwoman and Mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn have refused to take on the issue of fracking. Has there been any response from either of these two since then in regards to a show of support?
Cuomo has still not shown leadership on fracking in New York State (although there has been a delay). Quinn still actively supports the SPECTRA pipeline project, which is being built in her district.
Nothing has changed.
On the contrary, Quinn has repeatedly refused to hold hearings that would educate her constituents on the issue, and supported a project that would increase health risks in her community even as she allowed Saint Vincent’s Hospital to close. She expressed her support of the pipeline in a Mayoral Forum on Sustainability in May 2013 at Cooper Union.
It is worth mentioning that both Liu and DeBlasio, her rivals, expressly stated that they would oppose the pipeline project, noting its risks and the undemocratic way in which it has been implemented (during the public comment period, 5,000 comments were lodged against the project, while 20 were lodged for it).
[Also see: The Dangers of Fracking]
You have identified Occupy The Pipeline as a grass-roots, not-for-profit environmental group. How has the community responded to your call to action in terms of numbers and financial support?
The outpouring of support from the community has been really wonderful to see. However, it’s still hard to get the word out. When community members learn about the pipeline, they’re understandably horrified, and many have become active members of our group after learning about it.
We still need help spreading the word, and so we hope people will talk to their neighbors about this project and learn about it as much as they can.
How do you respond to Mayor Bloomberg’s strong backing for the Spectra Pipeline to be built, which came as a surprise considering his track record of being a health and environment-conscious public servant?
To be honest, it didn’t actually come as a surprise. Yes, Mike Bloomberg has taken important steps toward addressing the risks of climate change in New York City. However, Bloomberg is first and foremost a friend of the financial elite, and it would be a mistake to think of him as an environmentalist.
The natural gas bubble is making windfall profits for Wall Street (I would encourage you and your readers to check out the work of Deborah Rogers in this regard – click here) and so it makes perfect sense that Bloomberg would be on board.
What is your assessment on why big business for the most part still sides with fossil fuels and carbon-emitting energy sources instead of investing in alternative energy?
First of all, I would argue against the assumption that business sides with the fossil fuel industry; plenty of smaller businesses are supportive of renewable energy.
But you are correct that America’s business elite still sides with fossil fuels. This is about power, pure and simple. The interests of the fossil fuel industry have become deeply entrenched over the years, and carry a momentum of their own. Furthermore, fossil fuels are by their nature more amenable to top-down, hierarchical control than alternative energy sources.
Timothy Mitchell has done excellent work in “Carbon Democracy,” his history of the energy industry from coal to the present, showcasing how fossil fuels inherently consolidate power among the business class. When you control all points of distribution and extraction, you can distort entire economies and political systems to your will. By contrast, a distributed grid running on renewable energy puts the power in the hands of the consumer. David Roberts at grist.com has done excellent work writing about the potential of a distributed grid.
Making the transition to renewable energy is purely a matter of political will. The technology is here, and a transition to renewables would ultimately be cheaper for New York City than natural gas; however, we have to make sure our representatives carry it out.
How optimistic is OTP that it can still win this thing?
We see the SPECTRA issue as one battle in a larger war. We are hopeful that we can still stop the SPECTRA pipeline.
For those of you who would like to help, we encourage you to visit our website and we encourage you to contact your representatives and tell them to support State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal’s Radon Monitoring bill.
However, we are in it for the long haul. We are working for a world free from fossil fuels, and we will not rest until we have brought that world into being.
Any final thoughts and words for our readers?
Please spread the word and get involved! There are so many wonderful things we can accomplish, and we can’t wait to work with you to get them done. Tell your neighbors about it, call your elected officials and ask them to oppose the pipeline, come to our marches and talk to us in person.
We’ll see you in the street!
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