Tell Cuomo and the Dept of Environmental Conservation: Say NO to National Grid’s air permit for more fracked gas in Brooklyn
Tips to write your comment to the Department of Environmental Conservation, who oversees permitting for this project, and works under the direction of Governor Cuomo. We are also addressing Honorable Phillips at the DPS.
Subject: DEC App: 2-6101-00071/00024 & DPS Case 19-G-0309/10
- Begin by introducing yourself and where you live -- Feel free to include a personal story about how climate change or pollution affects your life or the lives of loved ones.
You can copy and paste talking points (below), or weave them into your own letter.
1. We want a public hearing about this. The residents in North Brooklyn were not consulted about more fossil fuel expansions in Greenpoint.
2. New York State banned new LNG facilities in 1976, after an explosion on Staten Island killed 40 workers, and this moratorium still prohibits new LNG facilities within New York City. Expanding this facility creates a loophole in our law.
3. LNG creates acute public safety risks:
- LNG explodes when spilled into water and, if spilled on the ground, can turn into rapidly expanding, odorless clouds that can flash-freeze human flesh and asphyxiate by displacing oxygen.
- If ignited at the source, LNG vapors can become flaming “pool fires” that burn hotter than other fuels and cannot be extinguished.
- LNG fires burn hot enough to cause second-degree burns on exposed skin up to a mile away.
- LNG facilities pose significant risks to nearby population centers and have been identified as potential terrorist targets.
4. Large storage tanks represent the greatest land-based hazard because of the large volume of LNG stored in them. The primary safety issues regarding large storage tanks are the prevention of a catastrophic tank failure.
5. National Grid is trying to create an unethical variance to our law in order to transport LNG by truck from Brooklyn to Long Island and Massachusetts. This poses a danger to New Yorkers, especially to local residents, and displays disregard by a multinational corporation for our local safety laws.
6. There are 1,005,411 residents living in a 3 mile radius and 39,256 residents living in a 1 mile radius of the National Grid LNG facility. Expanding this dangerous fuel puts us at risk.
Source: https://maps.fractracker.org/latest/?appid=05ccb4997a0c4bedb10a8d9a028243bc
7. Expanding LNG at the National Grid facility is contrary to our New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act passed in 2019
- LNG liquefaction requires immense energy in order to achieve the ultra-low temperatures required for condensation.
- Vaporized gas is vented from storage tanks directly into the atmosphere. Before it is combusted or sent down a pipeline, LNG must be regasified via an energy-intensive process that requires massive infrastructure of its own, including periodic flaring to control pressure.
- Refrigeration, venting, leaks, flaring, and shipping make LNG more energy intensive than conventional natural gas, which is already 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.