Company says jet fuel pipeline is safe

A representative from the company that owns and operates the pipeline to John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) tried to calm apprehensive Howard Beach residents on July 9 by presenting safety points about the structure and insisting that it is safe and relatively insusceptible to tampering.
However, residents who attended the event at St. Barnabas Church on Monday, July 9 were not entirely convinced. Several posed questions about the red warning markers located near homes close to the jet fuel pipeline’s path, and how the community would be affected if the structure that runs like an artery through parts of Queens were once again the target of a terror plot.
Some residents said the Town Hall meeting did not provide them with piece of mind or any new information.
“I don’t feel any safer or less safe,” said Anne Vigilarolo, a lifelong Howard Beach resident. “We don’t know anything we didn’t know before. What would blow it up? They don’t know.”
When Roy R. Haase Jr., the representative from Buckeye Partners - the company that runs the pipeline - responded to a very direct question from Vigilarolo during the question and answer session about what someone would have to do to cause significant damage to the structure and the surrounding community, Haase said that could not be answered and each scenario is different.
During the meeting, Haase explained how the 40 miles of pipeline that run from New Jersey to Queens has 100 manual control valves that F.D.N.Y. firefighters in neighborhoods containing the structure are trained to operate. In addition, the pipeline contains valves that can be controlled from Linden, New Jersey - where the pipeline originates. In an emergency, the Linden station would close the valves and shut down the fuel pump.
“It’s probably the only pipeline system that can be shut down like that,” Haase noted.
He also addressed the issue of portions of the 12-inch pipeline being located aboveground in neighborhoods such as Astoria. He said these sections are more heavily encased with concrete or steel than those buried three to four feet underground, and are outfitted with monitoring equipment.
Haase maintained that had the terror plot at JFK been carried out it would not have caused the type of devastation reported by the news media, and would probably only have affected a small part of the airport.
Furthermore, the fuel in the pipeline would need to mix with oxygen to be able to ignite - something that is not likely to happen.
“Petroleum products have to evaporate and mix with air or oxygen to become combustible,” Haase explained. “The pipeline is filled from top to bottom with liquid.”
Haase also addressed several other misconceptions including the myths that the pipeline runs under homes and that it only serves JFK. Two 12-inch pipelines run east from Linden and serve stations in Long Island City; Inwood; Nassau County; LaGuardia Airport and JFK.
When during the question and answer section residents grew increasingly discontent, Community Board 10 chairperson Betty Braton interjected in support of the company’s effort to address citizens’ fears.
“We as people who are [involved] are assured they’re doing everything they can to keep us safe,” Braton said. “We as a community only have to look out - you see someone digging, call the terrorist hotline.”