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North Brooklyn Residents File Lawsuit Against NYC And National Grid To Stop Illegal Construction

Bklyner Staff

Bklyner Staff

— 2 min read
North Brooklyn Residents File Lawsuit Against NYC And National Grid To Stop Illegal Construction

Neighbors in Greenpoint living near National Grid’s large fracked gas storage depot on Newtown Creek have filed a lawsuit to stop construction of the company’s Liquefied Natural Gas (“LNG”) Truck Load/Unload Station (“LNG Trucking Station”) and other illegal LNG trucking-related construction activities.

Cooper Park Resident Council, which represents over 700 families residing in the evacuation zone of the Greenpoint facility, and Sane Energy Project, which represents residents along the controversial North Brooklyn Pipeline that would connect to the facility if completed are being represented by the University Network for Human Rights and Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic.

The lawsuit alleges both the City and State have failed to enforce their own climate laws and failed to protect communities from environmental pollution by allowing ongoing illegal construction by National Grid while failing to complete legally required SEQRA review of an LNG trucking proposal that National Grid submitted to the City in 2016.

National Grid admitted to constructing the LNG Trucking Station in a Brooklyn Community Board 1 meeting while also admitting that the Company is “working with City and State officials for the future of LNG trucking.”

"This is something that must be stopped and must be stopped immediately," said Elisha Fye, Vice President of the Cooper Park Residents Council. "I've been living in this community since 1953. We're already impacted in this community with the oil spill that happened. We were stricken with asthma, a pandemic of asthma flooded this community, illnesses, deformities in pregnancies, not to mention the soil is still contaminated to this day."

“National Grid’s reluctance to conduct environmental and traffic impact studies is a red flag and until such information is available, National Grid should not be allowed to proceed with its LNG transport plan,” said Eric Kun, who lives adjacent to the facility.

National Grid states in its pending LNG trucking proposal that, pursuant to an Administrative Order on Consent (“AOC”) between the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) and National Grid, DEC would also need to approve LNG trucking-related activities at the Greenpoint facility prior to the start of any construction “to ensure there are no significant adverse impacts from construction.”

However, the lawsuit says, no such approval has been obtained.

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