They’re back to blast the frack!
Police arrested three anti-fracking activists Friday who climbed into a National Grid gas pipeline construction site on Montrose Avenue in Williamsburg.
The three protesters defied the heavy rain and climbed into the active building hole near Leonard Street before noon, demanding the utility company halt the controversial fossil fuel project.
“We’re shutting down the pipeline, I don’t want people in my neighborhood Brownsville to suffer from cancer,” said Gabriel Jamison, of the group Brownsville Residents Green Committee, from below ground on Oct. 16. “I’m sacrificing myself so National Grid don’t have to build this fracked gas pipeline through none of our neighborhoods — I’m not with it.”
The action marks the second consecutive day protesters broke into construction sites for the project — officially dubbed the Metropolitan Natural Gas Reliability Project — after police arrested four other activists who locked themselves to another building spot around the corner on Manhattan Avenue Thursday.
Another demonstrator slammed the company for tearing up streets along the seven-mile route from Brownsville to Greenpoint for a pipe that Brooklynites will pay for through rate hikes, though they won’t benefit from it, activists say.
“This isn’t even something that’s going to support our neighborhood, this isn’t anything to do with us as residents, but we’re the one’s paying for it,” said the protester, whom another organizer identified as Britt.
About a dozen protesters with the environmentalist coalition No North Brooklyn Pipeline unfurled flags saying, “No North Brooklyn Pipeline” at the site, temporarily halting work.
Soon, dozens of police swarmed to the site after 12:30 pm, arresting three of the agitators and driving them to the 84th Precinct downtown for processing, according to a police spokeswoman.
Work resumed afterward, while several police squad cars remained on scene.
Cops slapped two of Thursday’s protesters with misdemeanor trespassing and obstruction of governmental administration charges, and charged one of those two with disorderly conduct allegations, according to the Department spokeswoman.
The rep didn’t have a record of charges for the other two protesters whom police collared on Oct. 15, or the three new arrestees from Friday.
Nat Grid’s president for the New York area slammed the protesters Thursday evening for endangering workers and themselves by breaking into building sites, but a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Friday’s protest.
This story first appeared on our sister publication brooklynpaper.com.
