The Oklahoma-based Williams Transco company is proposing a pipeline through lower Hudson Harbor again. New York first rejected this pipeline in 2020, and now we must do it again. What’s good for a Tulsa gas company is terrible for Queens’ health and our wallets.
The Williams Pipeline, also called the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project (NESE), would transport fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Rockaway, Queens. To be built, it needs both federal and state permits. Last time it was proposed, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) denied its water quality permit because construction would disturb toxic seabed chemicals—arsenic, PCBs, dioxins—that would endanger marine life, human health, and coastal tourism.
Despite the denied permit, at the end of May 2025, the Oklahoma-based Williams Transco company, proposed the project again. Nothing about the project has changed. What has changed is federal policy, which has given fossil fuel projects new momentum. Williams has simply reapplied hoping for a different outcome…