The fight to prevent New York State from becoming a massive distribution center for fossil fuels drilled in other states 

If someone came into your community and told you that they had to take your land via eminent domain so they could build a gas or oil pipeline;... 

that you were going to periodically have to leave your home while regular maintenance was done to protect yourself from the toxins and high decibel sounds that come from gas release; that the toxic emissions from the infrastructure could worsen your child’s asthma, cause other health problems and potentially cause cancer; that your neighbors many miles away could feel the effects of the air pollution;  that by having this infrastructure ,New York is aiding the destruction of the places in Pennsylvania that are getting fracked and since gas companies are now applying for export permits, the gas travelling through your community would end up in overseas markets to drive the price of gas higher here in the U.S.  - What would you say?

This is exactly the situation faced by many New Yorkers.

While we have successfully banned fracking wells in New York State, we are under tremendous danger from the proposed build out of a gas and oil infrastructure to transport fracked fuel through New York from other states.

This is the first of a series to help educate you about the status of infrastructure projects in New York and its dangers.

• Gas and oil pipelines carry dangerous, volatile and explosive fossil fuel. They leak and can explode.  They emit toxic chemicals that sicken the people around them. They carry most of the same kinds of threats to our health and the environment as drilling for wells.

• Oil transport brings the danger of catastrophic accidents, like the one on July 6, 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people and leveled a town.  Last week an oil train using supposedly "safer" railcars, exploded in West Virginia contaminating the air and the Kanawha River. It is not a question of if an accident will happen; it is a question of when.

• Infrastructure is proposed throughout the state, and in places where fracking was not even considered, like Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam, counties and along the Hudson River from Albany to New York City.  This puts many more New Yorkers at risk.

• Building a gas and oil infrastructure will lock us into using fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and hamper the critical transition to clean, renewable energy.

• At a bare minimum, any permit must be dependent on quarterly baseline air and water testing at each compressor station and designated sites along the pipelines. These tests must be funded by the petitioner and performed by an independent third party.

• Gas and oil transport brings great risk and no benefit to New Yorkers.  Market prices for gas have been declining in the U.S. so the industry is looking for more lucrative markets.  The gas industry has submitted its first application to export gas overseas from the Northeast.  Not only would they charge more for the gas that is exported, but by decreasing the supply in the U.S. they could increase prices here at home. This is a lose, lose for the people of New York.

We urge our government officials to apply the same criteria to assessing the dangers of building a gas and oil infrastructure that they did to assessing the dangers of A fracking well and believe that they will come to the conclusion that transporting gas and oil in New York State is unsafe.

We need your help to stop the Constitution and Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline projects.

Unless the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) rejects the permit requests for a 401 Water Quality Certification for both the Constitution and AIM pipelines and an air quality permit for two compressor stations that are proposed as part of the AIM project, these two projects will be built in our region.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has already rubber-stamped the Constitution application and is expected to do the same for the AIM project. The NYSDEC will be the only thing that stands in the way of these projects going forward.

We only have until February 27, 2015 for you to send comments to the NYSDEC and tell they why they must not sign off on these permits. Click on the link below to send a letter to the NYSDEC Commissioner and why they should deny these permits. 

To send a letter to NYSDEC Commissioner Joseph Martens, on the Constitution pipeline, click here.

Click here to make comments on the AIM Project.

Click here to send your comments on the Constitution Pipeline. 

For much more detailed information on these topics, please click here to read a summary of the "State of Fracking in New York".   It will lead you to even more information.