The Williams NESE project would include

All of this would link up with an existing Williams pipeline. The section in New York Bay would come within a mile of Staten Island before continuing on to connect with the Rockaway Lateral pipeline, which travels under a public beach.

There are a few reasons why the Williams NESE Pipeline is harmful. It would:

• extend New Yorkers’ dependence on fossil fuels and exacerbate climate change, a problem we are said to only have 12 years left to fix
• threaten human health. The seabed that would be dug up for this pipeline contains unsafe levels of toxic substances like arsenic, PCBs, lead, and dioxin, which would all end up in the water near our beaches
• harm marine life. In addition to churning up toxins into the sea water, construction would take place seven days a week, producing noise and water turbidity that would threaten the extremely rare Atlantic Right Whale, the endangered Atlantic sturgeon, and other sea creatures
• Williams and its subsidiary Transco have a terrible safety record. Over the last decade, ten people have died because of Williams-related accidents. A leak or rupture of this pipeline would threaten shore communities, both human and non-human.
• The Williams NESE pipeline is expensive, projected to cost just under a billion dollars. It is also not needed, since it would deliver gas to an area that just got a new delivery pipeline in 2015 and also because Empire Wind, the nation's first utility-scale offshore wind farm, is coming to New York