True to its longstanding tradition of outraged journalism, The Village Voice (a paper that relentlessly followed the Westway debacle), covered another Hudson River travesty. Explaining the size and pressure of the Spectra pipe, the reporter notes, “When these things blow, they blow the fuck UP.”
Writer Nick Pinto handily sums up the major issues with the project: the terrible safety record of the builder; the skewed FERC approval system; the various lawsuits; the community resistance–and especially–the placement of the pipe adjacent to the new fire boat station, the new water main, and, “the Pier 51 playground, frequented by the sometimes adorable and always flammable children of the neighborhood.”
Online comments are flooding in and we invite Sane Energy members to chime in. It has taken 2 years for any major NYC media outlet to finally do some in-depth reporting on this issue, and we’d like to signal the Voice that this is a topic we’d like them to follow up on. Full story here.
I’m glad to see the Village Voice waking up to the arrival of the Spectra Pipeline in the West Village. As you write below, “It has taken 2 years for any major NYC media outlet to finally do some in-depth reporting on this issue…” I would like to point out that during these 2 years The Villager has been investigating and reporting the dangers of the Spectra Pipeline for all to learn.
Absolutely. The Villager and various other local papers, NY1, online blogs and news sources have followed the story diligently, while the New York Times has posted but one notice, more than a year ago. Naomi Wolfe covered the OTP naked green people in the Guardian, and the NY Daily News posted an account of our lawsuit being filed, but the “paper of record” and the major tv news stations have yet to inform the larger city about this or the Rockaway pipeline, or the new Harlem metering station upgrades, or to make it clear to city residents that they are at risk from this deadly infrastructure, the push to convert boilers, and radon. They have thus far left the burden to the smaller media outlets and grassroots activists. We encourage our members to lobby for more coverage, see our action alerts page.