A contingent of some 200 people marched from the Occupy Wall Street protest in “Liberty Square,” following a speech by actor Mark Ruffalo, to the climactic last hearing of the proposed “Spectra Pipeline” or NJ-NY Expansion Project, which was held in the Greenwich Village School auditorium.
The “99 Percenters” helped fill the auditorium after marching past City Hall, through Tribecca, SOHO and the West Village chanting “No fracking way.” They helped fill the room, adding to a hundred initial people who were either from lower west Manhattan or the general antifracking movement of New York City. There were only about forty people at the previous hearing in the West Village over the pipeline last year.
This pipeline, if approved, will be built under the Hudson into the Meatpacking District to serve natural gas to the west side of Manhattan. Though the Mayors of Jersey City and New York have conflicting opinions over it, only the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) opinion matters.
The FERC has never rejected a pipeline. Mayor Bloomber however, is evidently favorable since his PlaNYC 2030 report provides for new gas pipelines into the City. Mayor Healey of Jersey City opposes it because if it were to explode resembling an accident in San Bruno California last year, it would affect the most densely populated city in the country, which is his.