Alert! Port Ambrose LNG Port A Health Hazard for NY and NJ Beaches

Kim Frackek is the Outreach Coordinator for the Sane Enery Project

My role as a blogger for health is to bring your attention to a wide variety of issues that go beyond our usual obsessions. This post concerns the infrastructure being built at an alarming rate to export fracked gas in the New York Harbor. Have you heard of the proposed LNG port proposed for New York Harbor? Do you know where Port Ambrose is and why Jones Beach, Robert Moses Beach and all beaches in the vicinity the locations where you like to take your family may no longer be safe come this summer? Did you know Governor Chris Christie vetoed this project? Did you know that once liquified natural gas starts burning it cannot be extinguished? If you have ever seem someone have the misfortune of trying to flambe rum and have it travel up there are in a flash you have an idea what kind of misfortune this could turn into in New York on a grand scale with our aging and decrepit pipes. If you haven't heard about any of this you are not alone. The gas and oil interests who have brought you fracking have made hearings scant and times and locations to attend at the most inconvenient possible far way from the communities that would be directly affected. I offer you testimony from last weeks hearing (and so far the ONLY hearing) by Kim Frackek one of 300 persons who attended to speak out. At the end of this post see links to make comments and learn more about this very real threat that Governor Cuomo can veto. Please encourage him to do so. I for one would like to continue going to the beaches I grew up on, don't  you? 

With Concern - Ekayani Chamberlin

Testimony dated January, 2015
JKK Hilton Public Hearing on Port Ambrose LNG Project

"My name is Kim Fraczek, I am a resident of Brooklyn, NY and work as the Outreach Coordinator for Sane Energy Project as well as work with several diverse community groups in our region as an arts educator and organizer.
I am here today wishing to address several issues about the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, but with respect to time, I will focus on just a few points, and submit a more lengthy comment in my written testimony. I understand you have accepted our request for an additional hearing in New York, but declined our request to have a hearing in central Manhattan. This already poses a problem for our state. It tells me that you don’t want to hear what the public has to say about this LNG Port, given the complicated location and time today. I know several parents and hundreds of working people who would like to participate in this process, but cannot because of this difficult location where we had to spend money to rent cars and coordinate expensive busses just to be present. I request that you push to hold hearings in every borough as well as surrounding NY and NJ counties, who will also face environmental impacts from the LNG Port, that is near easy public transportation. If you need help finding locations, I can assure you, anyone in this room would be glad to assist you. Further, I appreciate the 30 day extension on the comment period, however 90 days to review 25 lengthy volumes of information about this LNG port while the public is busy working to pay their bills and feed their families is nowhere near sufficient time to possibly digest this this information and formulate meaningful comments.
Per the DEIS, I am concerned about the health impacts this is going to have on my human, marine and plant/food community. I see there is insufficient information about how air quality monitoring is taking place to establish a base reading. I quote from the DEIS, “No air quality monitoring stations are located in the immediate vicinity of the proposed Port facilities as no offshore data are collected;” When mentioning studying ambient air quality, from the shore line, “Monitoring is performed primarily for pollutants, known as criteria air pollutants…These pollutants include nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide,” Given that Liquefied Natural Gas will emit high doses of Methane, how are you monitoring this? We would like a base reading of Methane from the immediate vicinity as well as the shoreline and inland. Why should this be too much to ask? Liberty Natural Gas wants the financial benefits from our location to turn profit, so we want to make certain we are not suffering health impacts. Can we feel safe about relaxing on our famous beaches that bring loads of economic value to our neighborhoods? According to U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, “If LNG spills into water, it explodes. If LNG spills on the ground, it turns into rapidly expanding clouds of vaporizing methane that can asphyxiate by displacing oxygen and flash-freeze human flesh.” According to the Congressional Research Service, “If ignited at the source, these vapors become flaming “pool fires” that burn hotter than other fuels and cannot be extinguished. Highly volatile LNG cannot be odorized, so there is no warning of a leak”
I would actually like to ask you to sit with those thoughts and images for a few moments and imagine if your family and friends were to be affected by a very possible leak on a nice summer day, enjoying the beach.
Why should we have to bear the risk and the definite air quality issues that come with a giant refrigerator housing volatile gas near our homes when there is such a possibility and future with renewable energy sources that can come from the wind, the tide and our ever-giving sun. Creating clean energy systems that work in harmony with our planet, can provide exciting jobs and careers for our union members here.
Companies like Liberty Natural Gas is part of the largest industry our planet has ever known. They will put their profits before our labor forces safety, our food supply, our water supply, the safety of our homes and the safety of our future to sustain life on this planet. And life is a pretty great gift that we have. Please work together with us to deny Port Ambrose and build an efficient, clean and profitable future for everyone, including our local communities.

Thank you."

Coverage in New York Newsday
Sane Energy Project How to Submit Comment Info:

Please join me on The Healing Artist Internet Radio Show Tuesday, August 26th at 6PM where I have the joy of interviewing four dynamic leaders on Practical Actions for Green Living in New York State..or any state! Get informed, get inspired and admire and support these people and projects.
- Ekayani Chamberlin

Global Warning Means Global Flooding - Serbia & Bosnia

 Global Warming Means Flooding

My good friend Vladimir Debeljak, MD is witnessing something horrible in his country. Please share this information to help. He wrote me ; "I'm ok but there are many casualties in flooded cities, thousands of people have been evacuated and lost their homes, can you please share these picture with contact numbers for donating, I will contact you if I find if there is anything that you can help. Thank you very much for your help and sympathies."
My friends unless you want to build an ark like NOAH we need to turn to solar, wind and plain old conservation now. The time of waste is over. This is the cost. With the torrential rains we just had here in New York Friday May 15 had me fearing a repeat of Hurricane Sandy. We got one. In Eastern Europe.

West Virginia Water Crisis The Living Connection with Ekayani Chamberlin...

Instructions for Intentional Meditation October 19 & 23

Huge Events Kirtan Yoga + Global Frackdown September 25 October 19

FOUR BIG EVENTS ARE COMING UP September 25, October 19, October 23 and November 26. Here's what's going down!!!

KIRTAN YOGA is a NEW interactive evening we are launching September 25th @ 8:30PM at JivaMukti Yoga School off Union Square by donation. It's happening  9/25, 10/ 23 & 11/26 (right before Thanksgiving) It's going to be fun,spirited, meaningful, & dedicated to our Water which is under threat from fracking for gas, a destructive process that the residents of Boulder, Colorado have been suffering under during massive floods right now. New York is a water city like so many on the East Coast. I live right on the waters edge. I am coming out now to speak my truth because our lives are in danger and hope many of you will join me in trying something NEW. For a long time now I have felt that an added dimension is required to saving this planet. So I am leading an Intentional Meditation as part of the Global Frackdown a Day of Action on the 1st Anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. It's happening October 19 at the Park at Pier 61, NYC 10011. PLEASE see Show Schedule to RSVP and spread the word. Meanwhile, check this link out about Boulder

http://www.texassharon.com/2013/09/15/is-there-a-media-blackout-on-the-fracking-flood-disaster-in-colorado/
Please  share with friends who you think would appreciate. Parama Karuna!

Love from

EKAYANI and The Tom Glide Space

Govenor Gillibrand Drags Her Feet Minisink Poisoning 9/11 First Repsonders

The town of Minisink located in southwest Orange County NY , NE of NJ

Tomorrow in the 12th anniversary of 9/11. Several weeks ago I learned that the town of Minisink, New York was being poisoned by the three gas compressor stations built by Millenium Pipeline. How ironic  that Minisink is home to many first responders to 9/11 whose health has already been compromised from that disaster. When I learned the news, I truly  felt as if I had just learned that my entire family had just been murdered. Murder is in effect what is happening in this town only 84 miles from New York City. How is it possible that it is so under the radar in regional and national awareness in terms of the hazardous effects of gas shale drilling? Senator Gillibrand has been doing her part to keep it hush hush by not responding at all Check this out http://ecowatch.com/2013/minisink-protest-outside-gillibrands-office/.   It's acceptable to plunk down a gas compressor spewing out toxic methane gas across the street from a family farm. It is not acceptable to commit this crime. It begs the question Is the right of quiet enjoyment  being defied in a manner that goes beyond brazen? For those not familiar with the term quiet enjoyment it is something I learned during my brief stint as a real estate agent. It means quite simply what it says: A  right to enjoy ones property quietly.

Show Minisink you support here

About Minisink is a town located in southwest Orange County, New York northeast of the New Jersey border between the Town of Greenville and the Town of Warwick. The population was 4,490 at the 2010 census. The residents get their water from the aquifer or their own wells. This water is now being poisoned by the "blowouts" of methane gas being released into the air already 7 times since June. Millenium the company responsible for this has deceived regulators by saying there would ONLY  be four per year. Four per year is  bad enough and for first responders to 9/11 in this town who are already suffering respiratory diseases this is a nail in the coffin. The quiet clean lifestyle they opted into by living in this rural town is now gone but they are bravely rallying to stop the pollution before it goes any further. This is what the Halliburton loophole looks like. Watch this video of the toxins being released into the atmosphere.

 “There is a vast infrastructure of pipelines, compressor stations, frack waste storage facilities, etc., growing at a phenomenal speed in our state; terrible harm is already occurring to people who live near this build-out. And the dangers are not just local—we are in the watershed and farmlands that provide for New York City—so this infrastructure presents incredible new risks for city-dwellers an hour away, as well.” - Asha Canalos, Resident of Minisink


Geography (From Wikipedia)  Historically, the name Minisink, which dates to the mid 17th century, has applied to a much larger area than the current town, running as far north as Minisink Ford, twenty miles northwest of present day Minisink, south to the Delaware Water Gap, thirty miles southwest of present day Minisink, and from the Kittatinny Ridge to the east to the Poconos to the west (See [1]). The Minisink Patent, granted in 1704, was a somewhat smaller area, but still far larger than the present town, which was given its present boundaries in 1800. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the New York - New Jersey border was previously seven or eight miles north of its present location: Minisink used to be in New Jersey.First settled by Europeans around 1725, the jurisdiction was organized by Americans as a town in 1788 following the Revolutionary War. In the following decades, the Town of Minisink lost territory to newer towns: Deer Park (1798), Wawayanda (1849), and Greenville (1853). In 1871, the community of Unionville set itself off from the town by incorporating as a village.

It's Calling Week Save New York State Beer & Water

New York State is a Beer State

One of the things that I learned at my latest job stint at LittleTown gastro pub is that New York State produces a lot of beer. A Lot  Of  It. So much beer in fact that 18 to 22 on tap nightly is average at Littletown with 100 more in bottles. They include everything from Fruit Ales to Ciders, Ports, Stouts, IPA's, Lagers. When I started working there as a hostess I had NO idea where Newburgh was let alone that they had a brewery. While Brooklyn Lager and Six Point even I knew about, other one's like McKenzies (which makes an excellent Apple Pie ale), Kelso,Three Philosophers, Bronx Pale Ale (!), Mothers Milk , I had never heard of before.

Calling Week! Call Governor Cuomo & Tell him you want your Beer forever

Hops, wheat and our precious clean New York State water is what goes into this and it employs a lot of people. It seems to me that even more than a coffee economy New York is a beer economy! And wine -  let's not forget about wine. We have a lot of vineyards on Long Island and the Great Lakes region. And Jesus turned water into wine. Let's keep our water clean and pristine and keep drinking beer. Hey Governor Cuomo want some peanuts with that beer?
Check this out
Chefs for Marcellus TWITTER  https://twitter.com/chefs4marcellus
97 Listed Breweries Get Your Beer Map Here!
http://thinknydrinkny.com/NYSBA_Brochure_INSIDE.pdf

++ Please follow them and tell any freaked farmers, brewers, vintners, beer drinkers you know that they are not alone and that farming and making stuff the old fashioned way is still HUGE in New York State. Thanks for calling.