Guest blog by Rav Freidel, Director, Concerned Citizens of Montauk – Rav@agencyrav.com
Big energy isn’t fiddling around while New York and New
Jersey rebuild the coastline. They’re, once again, trying to fast track both
oil exploration and the industrializing of the Atlantic Ocean with LNG –
Liquefied Natural Gas facilities.
First they tried to place Broadwater, a 1200’ long terminal,
in Long Island Sound. But impossible to ignore resistance from both sides of
the estuary thwarted this LNG facility. (To his credit, New York’s replacement
Governor David Patterson vetoed it after his predecessor Eliot Spitzer had
failed too.)
Undaunted, big energy tried to get a foothold in the ocean
and build “Safe Harbor” an artificial island off Long Beach, New York. Plus two
more Broadwater type LNG terminals off the New Jersey shore — “Blue Ocean” and “Liberty
Gas.” (Karl Rove himself couldn’t have come up with three better names to try and
cloak the raping of the ocean.)
So the battle to protect the New York /New Jersey Bight from
big energy ensued. Why it’s called “the Bight” I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s one of the most
bio diverse marine environments along the Atlantic Coast. It’s home to more
than 300 species of fish, 350 species of birds, 25 species of whales, dolphins
and seals, and 5 species of endangered sea turtles. It runs 256 miles from Cape
May, NJ to Montauk Point, NY and out to the continental shelf.
Due to soaring energy costs brought on by greed, big energy got
an enormous amount of support from Washington. Congress wanted to drill
everywhere without environmental review. Barack Obama, facing a difficult reelection,
championed opening up more of the Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico and even the
Atlantic Ocean to oil and natural gas exploration.
Then fate stepped in. BP’s Deep Water Horizon (also one of
those apple pie and motherhood names) exploded and defiled the gulf. Day after
day of news stories on the massive oil spill placed a pall over big energies
plans for the Atlantic.
Suddenly Safe Harbor folded its tent. So did Exxon’s Blue
Ocean. And NJ Governor Chris Christie kept his campaign promise and vetoed the
last hold out, Liberty Gas! LNG in the Bight was finally dead.
Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action based
in Sandy Hook, New Jersey sensed an opportunity. She dusted off legislation she
had been working on for years and rekindled the campaign to create a Clean
Ocean Zone (COZ) to protect the Bight.
Enough with all these endless meetings, late night hearings,
and countless conference calls, for once and for all we were going to get a
federal law that made sure that the only energy development in the Bight would
be renewables — green energy, like wind, solar and geothermal. There would be
no oil drilling, no LNG terminals, no BP type oil spills, no medical waste, no toxic
dredge spoils or sludge and sewage disposal. And both New York and New Jersey
would have a greater say in what neighboring states wanted to do to the ocean.
Cindy got tremendous support from municipalities, commercial
and recreational fishermen, surfers, boaters, businessmen, environmentalists,
restaurants and resorts up down the coast. There were 170 different business
and environmental groups who signed on to the COZ. Then last summer Cindy
launched the “Tour for the Shore” educational campaign. It featured Margo Pellegrino,
a world-class ocean kayaker paddling from Cape May to Montauk, Clean Ocean
Action attorney Sean Dixon peddling his 10-speed all the way, and philanthropist
Andrew Sabin, who calls himself a Teddy Roosevelt republican, wearing a GOP
cycling suit, as he covered the last 100-mile leg of the journey.
The politicians on both sides of the isle started paying
attention. But it was an election year. No new legislation would be possible
until 2013. Cindy had planned a massive letter writing campaign, meetings with
our congressmen and senators and Town resolutions supporting the COZ.
Then fate stepped in again. October 29, 2012, super-storm
Sandy devastated the coast and all bets were off on the COZ. People were focused
on getting the ocean out of their homes. Not trying to protect an unfriendly sea.
As expected, Liberty Gas has resurfaced again with a new
proposal to place another Broadwater type terminal off Atlantic Beach — the New
York side of the Bight. And once more were playing whack-a-mole with LNG.
In case you’re wondering what LNG is all about, it’s simple.
These gigantic facilities are for is exporting natural gas extracted by
Fracking — the process of sending pressurized fluid (water) into the shale, and
blasting the trapped gas out of the rock. Fracking contaminates drinking water and
pollutes the air we breathe. What’s more, LNG, a carbon-based fuel, is almost
as dirty as coal. It’s a greenhouse gas
that’s helping to cook the life out of the planet, and by the way, helping
cause super storms like Sandy, last summers drought and
the recent blizzard in the northeast.
For more information and how you can help drive a stake
through the heart of big energy and protect the NY/NJ Bight, please contact Zipf@cleanoceanaction.org, or
myself, Rav Freidel, director, Concerned Citizens of Montauk – Rav@agencyrav.com.
