Down the Aisle (the metering and regulating facility and the park)

 For the better part of last year I followed the news about a natural gas pipeline project that would place a large natural gas metering and regulating facility in the hangars that are down the aisle from where I garden in a park (Floyd Bennett Field). I can't count the amount of time I've spent poring through documents that trace this project's path back to 2009. But, back in 2009 those hangars in Floyd Bennett Field were not the preferred choice for a metering and regulating facility that would support a new pipeline lateral through Gateway National Recreation Area and the surrounding area, nor were they even an alternative site. The reason for this is pretty simple. Natural gas facilities like this metering and regulating facility are not the kind of things that are typically placed in parks, not just parks protected by the National Park Service, but most parks.

In 2009, when searching for a preferred and alternative site for this large facility, Williams used these words: "A key goal of the evaluation process was to identify a potential site that. in being developed as a meter and regulating station, would retain the land use regime of the immediate area."

 

Across from the hangars up until this Ocober there used to be a gazebo. It was built by a community of gardeners. The last time I was at Floyd Bennett Field, the gazebo lay flattened as it had been since Hurricane Sandy and I thought about the beautiful border around it that Bob had planted and tended over the years. I would defy anybody that says Williams had achieved that "key goal" in matching the site for that metering and regulating facility from a "land use regime" perspective.

This is a park last I checked. The land use regime they were going for is "developed industrial use" (their words, not mine.)