WaterCheck.biz - Transforming Your Relationship To Water

Spectra Gas Pipeline And Hydro Fracking Being Hotly Debated

Latest
22 November 2011
Maryruth Belsey Priebe
Hits: 14048
Print
Email

Spectra Gas Pipeline Being Hotly Debated

Spectra Energy of Houston has a plan to build the first-in-decades 15-mile natural gas pipeline in New York that would run from Staten Island to Bayonne and Jersey City, as well as cross into Manhattan. A public meeting in Greenwich Village with more than 300 people, including Occupy Wall Street protestors and actor Mark Ruffalo, spoke out against the project with serious concerns for the environment and water quality.

Of course, there are many concerned about what this pipeline will do to some prime development land, but more importantly are the eco concerns. The concerns include:

Gas line explosions, like one that happened in San Bruno California, which killed eight people and burned down dozens of homes.
Gas line leaks that would poison soil and pollute water supplies.
Radioactive radon and radium contamination.
The pipeline would be filled with gas extracted through the highly destructive and polluting hydraulic fracturing extraction process.

There is, however, one environmental argument for the pipeline. Most old New York buildings rely on dirty heating oil for winter comfort, but with the new requirement for retrofitting, many will be looking for new fuels. Natural gas burns somewhat cleaner than heating oil, and so will help to improve the city’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. However, when you take into account the entire life cycle of producing and extracting fracked gas, natural gas is a dirtier fuel.

But most environmentalists recognize that the use of natural gas is only a half-measure to green New York City. Renewable energy is the answer, not a pipeline to mainline natural gas. Especially, if it means supporting the highly destructive hydraulic fracturing gas extraction.

For more insight on the entire fracking subject, take a few minutes to watch an original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK's Ecologist Film Unit looks at the risks of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale ... (its a fracking good video)