The Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement Project (NESE) a project proposed by Williams—owners and operators “the nation’s largest and most reliable interstate natural gas transmission pipeline, Transco—is back for a third round of public berating after being knocked down by grassroots organizing in 2019 and 2020.
Surfrider’s New York City chapter, which has been in outstanding vocal opposition to the project from the get-go, is on the case with dedicated in-house attorney Emily Bryant-Álvarez, but filing a quick letter of opposition addressed to New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s respective offices doesn’t—and certainly hasn’t—hurt in the past.
The extension of the pipeline, according to a report by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., an environmental consulting and research firm working in the public interest, would bring fracked methane gas from Pennsylvania to downstate New York is purportedly expected to cost national grid customers $3 billion, but the unpredictable damage to our waterways (and air) could be the truly rotten outcome.
And for what? Well, yes, fuel, the greatest drug and high of them all—one in which just about each and every one of us indulges daily. The fresh proposal, filed on May 29 of this year with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), isn’t fresh in any respect, but the exact same twice-rejected one filed in 2017.
Synapse’s analyses report that the pipeline extension would trudge across 35 miles of fragile, estuarine seabed, releasing toxic legacy pollution (stuff with which New York’s Hudson River waterway is rife) into our waters. What’ll that do to the lineups in and around New York and New Jersey? Hopefully time will not tell. The extension could also wreak havoc on local air quality surrounding an expanded web of compressor stations, and, in a nutshell, “undermine New York and New Jersey’s commitment to clean energy when public data projects that there’s no need for the extension to meet neither current nor future energy demands.
So what is at play? Same old story told, in a word: greed.
But, if we do want to get into economics here, that surely hefty bag of cash that will land in the laps of a select few should the proposal be accepted, some $28 billion GDP by way of coastal tourism and recreation stands at substantial risk, to say nothing of the nearly half a million coastal jobs at stake, should the unthinkable occur. And however slim that probability is, who’s to say it won’t? It wouldn’t be the first time.
Learn more about the proposal at Surfrider NYC, read Synapse Energy Economics, Inc.’s full report, and let Governor Hochul or Governor Murphy know (depending where you live!): we will not accept a zombie pipeline that risks our health, climate, and future. It only takes a minute to send a message.