Pipeline Foes Stage Protest, Rally

On Monday, opponents of the Algonquin Pipeline expansion gathered outside Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Kirsten GIllibrand’s New York City offices to thank them for calling for an immediate halt to the AIM Pipeline construction project.

“Thank each and every one of you for coming out and standing with me today,” said Peekskill resident Courtney Williams, who has been fighting the project for years and whose daughter attends an elementary school located 400 feet from the pipeline.

The Thank-You rally differed greatly in tone from Saturday's protest.

On May 21, hundreds of people protested Spectra Energy’s project, the first of three so far underway to expand the Algonquin Pipeline, which already carries natural gas from New Jersey to New England.

At the protest, elected officials including Peekskill Mayor Frank Catalina and Councilwoman Kathy Talbot joined neighbors, environmental advocates, and concerned New Yorkers in marching from Blue Mountain Reservation to a metering and regulating station where Spectra Energy is currently drilling under Route 9.

They shut down construction activities by standing together and preventing Spectra vehicles from entering or leaving the site. Police arrested 21 people.

"We are stopping the Spectra AIM pipeline construction today, to make everyone aware of our environmental and safety concerns about this project, and to show that our voices and opinions matter,” said Tina Volz-Bongar, local Peekskill resident, in a press statement about the protest. “Our community’s interests must take priority over the financial gain of fossil fuel companies. Peekskill is an environmental justice city, and nowhere has Spectra or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission properly addressed the environmental impacts of the pipeline."

PHOTOS: 1-4: Protest, arrests May 21, 2016/credit Morgan Long. Photos 5, 6: New York City rally, May 23, 2016.