NYC leaders urge feds to kill Williams Pipeline once and for all
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Elected officials are calling on the federal government to put a final stop to the proposed Williams Pipeline. Photo via URIELEVY/Wikimedia Commons
Over two dozen New York City leaders have urged the federal government to kill a controversial pipeline project that would run underneath the waters off the Rockaway Peninsula.
The proposed Williams Northeast Supply Enhance Pipeline, or Williams Pipeline, would deliver fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York city via a tube underneath New York Harbor. The plan was rejected last year by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
In a letter Wednesday, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and State Sens. Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., Jessica Ramos and James Sanders called on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Richard Glick to also reject the Williams Pipeline once and for all. The pipeline would move the city and state further from achieving its climate goals, they said.
“We take climate change seriously, as we have already lost loved ones here in New York City to climate-fueled superstorms and heat waves that caused death, illness, debt, and scarcity,” the leaders wrote. “For our constituents and for the future generations who will live with the consequences of allowing the Williams Pipeline to be built, we urge you to deny Williams’ request.”
The letter cites Glick’s own condemnation of the initial FERC approval of the project in 2019, when he said that declaring the pipeline safe “fails to give climate change the serious consideration it deserves and that the law demands.”
On March 19, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company requested a two year extension to kickstart the project. The 17.4-mile-long, 26-inch diameter connection would transport fracked gas under the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of Rockaway Beach.
The letter cites the emissions impact of the gas being brought into the city once burned, new FERC recommendations that take into account the effects of transporting the gas — like methane leaks — and climate justice for the city’s most vulnerable communities.
“We will not allow the racist legacy of environmental and climate injustice to continue by building infrastructure that will increase the amount of polluting fracked gas in our city,” the letter continues
The lawmakers, including local assemblymembers and distinct leaders, also acknowledged significant public opposition to the pipeline, underscored by the more than 16,000 critical comments submitted during the DEC review period.
The DEC’s decision to reject the project in 2020 “was explicitly based on the facts that construction would irreparably threaten the health and safety of New York Harbor, that the project is inconsistent with state climate law, and that the project is entirely unnecessary when renewable alternatives are taken into account,” they continued.
On the same day that lawmakers sent their letter, advocates delivered a petition to FERC with thousands of signatures from people opposing the pipeline and rejecting Williams’ claim that there are no cleaner alternatives.
“As part of a community that endured the devastating impacts of Superstorm Sandy, we recognize the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels and fracked gas infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with New York's climate goals," said the Rockaway Beach Civic Association, a project opponent. “Clean water and healthy ecosystems are essential to the environment and economy.”
