Audubon: Rally Saturday against gas pipeline under Riis Park beach
New York City Audubon is asking residents of Brooklyn and Queens to attend a rally on Saturday, Aug. 4, to voice their views of a plan to run a natural gas pipeline under one of the city’s most popular beaches and Brooklyn’s Gateway National Park.
A bill approving the construction of the three-mile gas pipeline through Brooklyn and Queens was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. The $265 million “Rockaway Delivery Lateral Project” will generate almost 300 local jobs and serve the rising need for natural gas, Congressman Michael Grimm said in February. While gas is less polluting than oil, environmentalists worry about the effect of the pipeline on the delicate ecosystem.
The plan includes installing a primary natural gas pipeline in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of the Rockaways, and running it to a National Grid hub in Brooklyn. As reported in the Sheepshead Bites blog, the pipeline would travel under the Rockaways at Jacob Riis Park and across the Rockaway inlet to Floyd Bennett Field, where a new industrial facility would be built to support the pipeline. The line will then continue up Flatbush Avenue and into National Grid’s main system.