COURIER L 18 IFE, JANUARY 24-30, 2020
Protesters voiced their opposition to the planned gas main installation in north Brooklyn at
Community Board 1’s general meeting Tuesday. Photo by Kevin Duggan
FUMING MAD
Residents furious over Nat Grid’s
northern Brooklyn pipeline
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
They’re piping hot!
Northern Brooklynites blasted National
Grid reps for beginning construction
on a seven-mile pipeline slated for
installation under the streets of Williamsburg
and Bushwick — without
telling locals about their scheme.
“Almost no one knew you were doing
this work,” said Greenpoint resident
Kevin LaCherra at Community
Board 1’s general meeting on Tuesday.
“You are here telling this community
that you are doing the work — and the
work has already begun, the ground is
trenched, the pipe is laid.”
The company is currently tearing up
the streets around the neighborhoods
to install a seven-mile stretch of natural
gas pipeline, which would connect
its system in Brownsville to its Maspeth
Avenue depot at Newtown Creek — a
plan designed to relieve pressure on its
network and support economic growth
in the area, company offi cials said.
The state’s Public Service Commission
signed off on the project’s route in
2017, and split the tube into fi ve phases
— starting in Brownsville and snaking
its way north to Bedford-Stuyvesant, before
heading west through Bushwick in
2019.
Some 4.9 miles of the new pipe are
already in the ground and the scheme’s
fourth phase started last October.
Workers are currently laying down
the pipe around Flushing and Bushwick
avenues fronting the Bushwick Houses
public housing development, along with
Montrose Avenue between Manhattan
Avenue and Leonard Street, according
to its Jan. 13 newsletter.
The fi nal stretch will extend to Maspeth
Avenue, which offi cials expect to
wrap construction in 2021.
One nearby resident slammed the
company, saying no one in her building
complex knew anything about the pipeline
— until they had to move their cars
out of the way for construction work!
“How can you say you communicated
anything to this community,” said
Antonia Ortiz. “No one knew about this
until they had to get their car because
they were digging a hole.”
A rep for the fi rm said they have staff
on the ground notifying locals and that
they post weekly progress updates on
the project’s website.
In addition to the nearby residents
upset by the construction, the project
has also drawn vocal opposition from
environmentalists with the advocacy
group Sane Energy Project, who raised
concerns that the new pipe could be dangerous
by rupturing and sending explosions
through the neighborhoods — as
has been the case with more rural gas
pipelines across the country.
Reps for the utility company assured
attendants that the new pipe will be safe,
and that it could not rupture because
pipes running through cities carry
far less gas at lower pressure than the
larger interstate pipelines.
“The blast zone question does not
apply because the pipe is designed differently
to operate in an urban environment
as opposed to operating as an interstate
pipeline at a much higher pressure
going through a rural area,” said Nat
Grid engineer Peter Metzdorff.
But advocates said that gas gurus
should not only consider immediate
dangers, but also the larger issues —
like climate change.
“This neighborhood does not want to
be held hostage by a public utility company
that is supposed to be working for
us,” LaCherra said. “We don’t want this
pipeline, we want National Grid to invest
in renewable energy now. Climate
emergency is coming and we don’t have
any time to waste.”