the car at the teardrop shaped dirt
open area . There is a large storm
water detention pond, apparently lots
of illegal dumping and litter and a bit
of a 'lovers lane'.
I climbed up the newly refreshed
sand dune to the storm water out fall
and battered sea wall.
The concrete vehicle barriers are
thrown about haphazardly.
The wind out of the east was very
steady at twenty to thirty miles per
hour making visibility difficult but
there were some distinguishing fea-
tures of Fox Beach.
The newly constructed berm is about
elevation 13 feet and it stretches all
the way up past Kissam Ave. to Ce-
dar Grove Park.
The beach used to have an old re-
sort hotel and there is nothing left of
it now.
The wind and littoral forces have
gathered the exoskeleton molts of
the horseshoe crabs and brought
them to the south corner of the
beach, adjacent to the jetty. When
you step on them they are very
crunchy and quite brittle.
There were beverage containers
strewn around and a half-filled gar-
bage bag that was about to be swept
by the wind and deposited in the
bay.
I grabbed the bag, added some more
items to it and took it to the afore-
mentioned Sanitation turnaround.
Fox Beach is a good fishing spot and
despite neglect, its a beautiful place
for meditation and reflection.
The Port Ambrose LNG Terminal
By Ida Sanoff
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) termi-
nals continues to be highly contro-
versial projects. These terminals are
supposedly designed solely to import
natural gas to the United States.
This is based on claims that our ap-
petite for natural gas is so insatiable
that we have to start importing it.
But the U.S. already produces more
natural gas when we need, so why
do we need specialized ports to im-
port even more? Lately, there are
indications that the real reason why
these specialized terminals are being
built is to actually turn them into ex-
port facilities. In most of Europe and
Asia, little natural gas is produced
and the demand for it is enormous.
So logically, it makes more sense to
export U.S. produced natural gas
where there is greater demand and
higher prices.
Many people are
thinking that if the export scenario
becomes reality, U.S. consumers will
actually pay
more
for natural gas
when more of these terminals are
built, because there will be less of a
supply available for the domestic
market.
To make matters worse, one of
these LNG terminals, called Port
Ambrose, has been proposed for the
New York coastline!
Natural gas can be super cooled, all
the way down to minus 260
o
F. This
shrinks the volume of the gas 600
times, substantially reducing the
amount of space it would normally
occupy and making it easier to
transport it. The liquefied gas is
moved on huge, specialized tanker
ships to a designated terminal. But
this isn’t your standard port where
cranes unload containers. For safety
reasons, the terminals are offshore,
where the cooled liquid is warmed up
so that it becomes a gas again. A
series of pipelines on the sea floor
then carries the gas to its final desti-
nation on land. The terminals them-
selves can be large, artificially con-
structed islands that bury vast acres
of productive habitat on the sea floor
or massive floating terminals with
submerged spigots. There are mark-
North, East, South and West
By Jim Scarcella
This autumn, natural resources pro-
tective association decided to try a
series of events that symbolize our
efforts to be an island- wide environ-
mental organization. We performed
events in each of the quadrants of
Staten Island as follows:
North
On October 11, in a steady rain, a
few NRPA members, led by Keith
Jacobson, worked at the Community
Wellness Garden at 25 Broad Street
in Stapleton. The team removed
trash and litter that was thrown
against the fence, tore down invasive
weeds, removed the large canine
barriers and presented squash and
other gourds for the community to
Page 6
Fall 2014
NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
er buoys that float on the surface to
indicate where the spigots are.
When a ship approaches, the spigots
are brought up out of the water, con-
nected to the tanker ship and the gas
is then pumped out. Since natural
gas is highly flammable and explo-
sive, security is a major concern. As
a result, no boat traffic is permitted
for miles around these plants, se-
verely limiting fishing and boating
activities. Important habitat on the
sea floor is damaged by construction
of miles of pipelines. In addition,
these plants don’t exactly have a
perfect safety record, there is a his-
tory of explosions and fires. And you
would think that after Hurricane
Sandy devastated our coastline,
someone would realize that putting
what is essentially a potential floating
bomb near our shoreline would not
be a good idea.
It’s hard to believe, but Port Am-
brose, one of these horrific facilities,
has been proposed for a location
about 19 miles off Long Beach, Long
Island. Over 300 species of fish,
many species of sea birds, seals,
whales and dolphins are found in this
area and they will be impacted by
the construction and operation of
Port Ambrose. NRPA has joined
Clean Ocean Action and over a hun-
dred other organizations to oppose
this plant. More information can be
found on the Clean Ocean Action
website:
www.cleanoceanaction.org
.