Tuesday, November 29, 2016

LETTER FROM DENNIS KOONEY OPPOSING HUDSON RIVER ANCHORAGE PROPOSAL

Croton resident Dennis Kooney has submitted a letter in opposition to the USCG proposal to establish ten new anchorage sites on the Hudson. It is printed here at his request.

LETTER FROM DENNIS KOONEY: Responding to a request made by the Maritime Association, The US Coast Guard has proposed to establish 10 new Hudson River anchorage grounds. According to the USCG proposal “We are considering this action after receiving requests suggesting that anchorage grounds may improve navigation safety”.

The true underlying reason for this proposal is to satisfy the agenda of the oil industry to re-industrialize the Hudson and make the river corridor a major transportation route for crude oil.

Existing pipeline capacity to move crude south to the Gulf refineries from the Bakken Shale formation of North Dakota and nearby states has been exceeded and this highly volatile material is now being moved east by rail and barge to coastal refineries.

The moratorium on US oil exportation was lifted in December of 2015. Until late 2011, there was no crude oil being transported on the Hudson River, and the amount of crude oil being transported on the river today has quickly grown to a permitted volume of 2.8 billion gallons per year.

Billions of dollars has been spent on dredging deeper navigation channels in the New York harbor and the port of Albany. The completion of these dredging projects combined with a $1.3 billion project to raise the Bayonne Bridge in New Jersey will allow some of the world’s biggest ships and tankers to access the oil refinery there. This will result in dramatic increases in crude oil transportation by rail and barge between the two ports along the Hudson River corridor. The proposal to increase the number of anchorages in the Hudson suggests that more barges will follow and the river will potentially become a parking lot of vessels waiting to off-load their highly volatile cargo.

Referencing the Riverkeeper website:

“The New York State segment of this “virtual pipeline” primarily moves a particularly volatile crude oil by rail from the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota and nearby states and provinces, where oil production has doubled in three years, to the Port of Albany. There, billions of gallons of crude oil can be offloaded onto barges and ships destined for East Coast refineries. Additional trains loaded with crude oil destined for refineries to the south continue along the west side of the Hudson River, through communities in Greene, Ulster, Orange and Rockland counties. Some of these trains carry Canadian tar sands crude bitumen, and there are proposals that would facilitate the shipment of heavy crudes like this by barge as well.”

“Crude oil poses a new risk due to its characteristics as a pollutant and the massive volume being transported. Spill response plans have not been developed to respond adequately to spills of crude oil in all parts of the Hudson River. Spills of heavy crude oil can be particularly devastating, since the tar-like oil will likely sink, rather than float, making cleanup difficult or impossible. The success of spill response has to date not been measured by the amount of oil recovered after a spill, with recovery rates of just 5% or less common, and it is expected that the Hudson’s tides, currents and turbidity would make recovery particularly difficult.

A spill of crude oil in the Hudson River could devastate the ecosystem, put people’s health at risk and harm the regional economy, setting back decades of effort and billions of dollars invested to restore the river’s ecosystem:

·         The Hudson River is the source of drinking water to more than 100,000 residents of the Mid-Hudson Valley, including people living in Poughkeepsie, Highland, Port Ewen, Hyde Park and Rhinebeck.
·         The Hudson is a designated National Heritage Area, the backbone of the region’s $4.7 billion tourism economy, and a public beach and recreational resource for millions of people.
·         The Hudson River estuary supports more than 200 species of fish, including endangered species, and each stretch of the river provides unique habitats—including 40 state-designated significant wildlife habitats—essential for fish and other wildlife.
·         Critical infrastructure, including water and sewer plants, as well as public parks, homes and businesses on the waterfront are at risk from a spill.
·         Major industrial facilities, including several power plants, draw water from the Hudson.”

In the past 3 years, there have been 17 rail accidents involving crude oil in the US and Canada spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil and causing catastrophic damages to life and property. The most devastating derailment accident occurred in July 2013, at Lac-Megantic, Quebec causing the death of 47 people and the total destruction of several square blocks in the village.

Barge accidents on the Hudson have caused significant environmental damage. In 2005, 3.1 million gallons of gasoline was spilled in New Hamburgh and in 1977, 422,000 gallons of oil was spilled near West Point. With barge transportation being 1/3 the cost of rail or pipeline transportation, a dramatic increase in Hudson River barge traffic is predicted which will result in a significant increase in the probability of spills in the future.

As parents and grandparents, we have the responsibility to safeguard and protect the progress made over the last 50 years in cleaning up the Hudson. We must demand informed decision making to insure the future health and vitality of this great river. We must demand that our rail lines, tankers and barges meet the highest safety standards in order to reduce the probability of accidents and we must demand adequate oversite to insure compliance with regulations. We must also insure adequate resources are available to promptly respond to and mitigate accidents and or spills. We must be proactive in making the necessary legislative and regulatory changes and improvements to reasonably mitigate all risks the river is exposed to.

The anchorage proposal is just the tip of a huge iceberg making its way down the Hudson. We must recognize it for what it is and voice our opposition by contacting our local legislators. We can also document our opposition to the USCG by December 6th by visiting the “Regulations.gov” website link https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCG-2016-0132-0001.

Please take the time to view two important and revealing videos produced by Producer/Director Jon Bowermaster on this subject https://vimeo.com/191564361 ; https://vimeo.com/122257610 as well as additional information available on the Riverkeeper website http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/river-ecology/crude-oil-transport/.  I encourage you to also visit http://www.hudsonriveratrisk.com/ for a more detailed and inclusive look at Bowermaster’s videos documenting additional risks to the Hudson’s environment.

Sincerely,
Dennis M. Kooney

YOU MAY ALSO HAVE AN INTEREST IN "SCHMIDT, ANDERSON, JOIN NON-PARTISAN COALITION": http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/2016/08/schmidt-anderson-join-nonpartisan.html   

and if you'd like to send comments: Deadline Dec. 6th. Form at riverkeeper.org

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