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I’ve worked at Patagonia’s Upper West Side store since last summer. The company’s reputation for spreading a message of environmental responsibility is alluring, and the annual Voice Your Choice campaign is one example of using stores as a platform.
The VYC gist is simple: customers cast their votes; the winner gets $2,500. Each store holds its own contest. Every autumn, three community environmental organizations provide in-store displays explaining their mission. Passersby choose their favorite. VYC was, explains Patagonia’s Web site, “conceived to encourage store customers to become better informed and more involved with environmental work in their communities.”
Our store’s 2009 top vote getter, Clean Ocean Action, has been cooperating with groups and activists to oppose a proposal by Atlantic Sea Island Group (ASIG) to erect an offshore, liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. ASIG applied for a license from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration in 2006 to build an artificial island called Safe Harbor Energy. ASIG claims it will be a "receiving, storage and regasification facility" for imported LNG. The station would emerge 13.5 miles south of Long Beach, NY, and 23 miles from the Ports of New York and New Jersey. The structure would sit like a rest stop along active East Coast shipping lanes. Two parallel pipelines—spanning almost 13 miles—would transport the LNG from Safe Harbor to an existing offshore pipeline near Long Beach, further industrializing this portion of coastline.
Now there’s good news: ASIG has withdrawn its application for the project. A company statement said it was “suspending the project until the political situation [in the Gulf] is cleared up…Everybody’s concerned about what’s going on." Yet, while this demonstrates that public opinion can mildly sway energy policy, it’s only one battle. ASIG may have backed down as a result of the horrendous Gulf oil spill, but plans for two other natural gas projects off New Jersey’s shores still linger (Excalibur’s Liberty Natural Gas near Asbury Park and ExxonMobil’s Blue Ocean Energy at Sea Girt). The outcome remains uncertain, given that NJ Governor Chris Christie opposes all three terminals, but Governor David Paterson approved of NY’s State Energy Plan, which recommends removing impediments to the plans.
As a result, COA has urged folks to voice their choice by signing petitions, contacting representatives, attending public hearings, beach protests, and surf paddle-outs. The opposition’s arguments range from the environmental—that the island will disturb the marine habitat, create chances for spills or leaks, and increase ship traffic—to the national security threat posed by having an energy target right in their backyard, as well as continued reliance on foreign fuel-suppliers and the hindrances it puts on energy independence and innovation. COA believes it’s your choice to make—and that the right one for our region is obvious. That the economic benefits Safe Harbor would produce wouldn’t be as permanent as the environmental punishment inflicted.
The ASIG development can, however, provide welcomed optimism and evidence that efforts by COA and the like can work. Gearing up for Patagonia’s next environmental push, Protect Your Break, I asked store environmental coordinator Colin Pile what he hoped customers, staff, and window-shoppers took from the initiatives. “Even in an environment as artificial as New York,” he mused, “residents can discover how to reincorporate the natural world into their daily routine.”
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