Gas pipeline hearing tonight

From Metro:

The first of two Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Public Hearings over a proposed Rockaway gas pipeline will be taking place at the Knights of Columbus Rockaway Council 267 at 333 Beach 90th Street starting at 7 p.m.

The pipeline, to be built by Williams Transco and National Grid, is being hit with much of the same criticism as the Spectra Pipeline planned for lower Manhattan.

Both pipelines would bring shale gas — produced by fracking — to the city. Opponents are complaining that the review period has not been long enough and that environmental and safety concerns are not being adequately considered.

This pipeline would be embedded in the ocean floor, run under the sandy bank of Riis Park Beach, cross below the Rockaway Inlet and continue up Flatbush avenue to a Metering and Regulation facility. The facility would be built in two of the old abandoned airplane hangars at Floyd Bennet Field.

People poaching marine resources

From the NY Times:

It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie: Lookouts. Scuba gear. Secret caches, hidden under floating docks. Horseshoe crabs.

Horseshoe crabs?

The crabs are among the incredible riches of Jamaica Bay, New York City’s wildest expanse of water, where a running battle between conservation authorities and those who would flout their rules has been going on for years. Despite the bay’s distant fringe of skyline, it is teeming with schools of striped bass, blackfish and fluke. Crabs and clams are numerous in its reedy shallows.

For these species, and others, state and federal authorities set strict limits on how many of each an individual may catch per day — it is sometimes as little as two or three — and of what size.

And there are plenty of fishermen who try to get around those regulations and profit from an illicit catch.

“It’s a whole underground world,” said a fisherman standing outside Stella Maris Bait and Tackle in Sheepshead Bay one day recently. He declined to give his name for fear of retribution from his peers. “You go to any market, and there’s people selling fish, anytime, that’s illegal.”

“Ever see those mob movies?” he added, as whelk, also called scungilli, were unloaded nearby. “People come out of the woodwork that you’ve never seen, envelopes full of stuff, this, that, money.”

And on a recent night, a full-fledged police helicopter chase over the waters of the bay, using night-vision goggles. A New York Police Department helicopter patrol, out on a routine run from its base at Floyd Bennett Field on Memorial Day discovered four men near the shore, tossing live creatures into two flat-bottom skiffs. One boat escaped. The other, which was pursued by the helicopter, did not. Two men now have a date in federal court on charges of poaching horseshoe crabs.

City burning trees felled by Sandy

From CBS:

Getting rid of the debris was a major mission a month after Superstorm Sandy, and in Brooklyn on Wednesday, some of the debris was going up in smoke.

As CBS 2’s John Slattery reported, the wrath of Sandy brought down 15,000 trees in the city alone.

The trees have been chipped into 100,000 cubic yards at Floyd Bennett Field in southeast Brooklyn.

City and state environmental officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said the wood will be used for biofuel, for mulch and for landfill cover. But up to 500 cubic yards were being burned in a special incinerator.

City environmental officials said it is a clean way of burning, but CBS 2 was not allowed to look at it up close.

The contraption, the size of a shipping container, is called an Air Curtain Burner — a ceramic-lined firebox that burns debris as a diesel-powered pump shoots air over the box, creating a trap to keep fire and smoke from getting into the open air.

“The air current really suppresses smoke and particles that come from the fire,” and less particulate gets out, said city Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland.

But not all of the particulate is prevented from escaping, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was monitoring the air at eight spots around Floyd Bennett Field.

The closest residents to the field are those who live in the Rockaways, Marine Park and Mill Basin.

Exploring Floyd Bennett Field

From Scouting NY:

Before LaGuardia and JFK, Floyd Bennett Field was New York City’s first airport, at a time when nearly all air traffic was based out of Newark.

Great photo tour!

Signs of anti-Semitism at Floyd Bennett Field

"Please excuse the informal introduction, my name is Pat Cotillo, Jr. and I am a freelance photographer. While out on a personal assignment at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn I was approached by a Jill Weingarten who works at the Floyd Bennett Field Gardens Association Inc. She asked if I would be willing to take some pictures of the recent Anti-Semitic vandalism that has occurred on their grounds. Due to all the rash of Anti-Semitic attacks I thought you may be interested in the following photos."

Floyd Bennett Field's tunnel to see light of day

Brooklyn Diary: Bennett Field's Art Deco tunnel to reopen
(from the Daily News)

When Floyd Bennett Field served as the city's first municipal airport in the 1930s, an underground passenger tunnel connected the airport terminal to the tarmac.

Sealed since 1941 as a safety precaution during World War II, the 300-yard Art Deco-inspired tunnel is getting a second look from the National Park Service, which plans to reopen it to visitors soon.

"It's part of the history of the field," said National Park Service spokesman Brian Feeney, who added the tunnel is decorated with highly ornamental Art Deco tile work. "You almost don't expect the level of detail, but when you think about the 1930s, architecture wasn't just functional; it was beautiful."

Photo by Vidiot on Flickr