Buckeye’s fighting back

By Matthew Lysiak
The Brooklyn Paper

Threat? What threat?

That’s what officials of the Buckeye Pipe Line Company will soon be telling terror-fearing Bay Ridge residents in a new public initiative designed to explain that its controversial fuel pipeline — an apparent terror target earlier this year — is safe.

The latest fears about the pipeline, which runs in the train cut near 65th Street in Bay Ridge, stemmed from the June arrest of four men who supposedly plotted to blow up the jet fuel tanks — and the pipelines that supply them — at JFK Airport.

But Buckeye Vice President of Field Operations Brian Jury said fear is just a media creation.

“Safety … is our top priority and our pipelines are well-protected,” said Jury. “Unfortunately, distortions regarding pipeline operations and safety have been widely reported.”

To combat this misinformation, Buckeye will be hitting the local community board circuit and sending out mailings. The campaign will explain that “an attack on the pipeline involving explosives, even if it ruptured the pipeline and ignited the escaping fuel, would be localized,” said Jury.

But it won’t be an easy sell.

The arrests in June ignited fears in Bay Ridge about the 40-year-old pipeline, which runs from Linden, New Jersey to JFK — via Bay Ridge.

“Of course, we are on edge,” said Avery Greene, a resident of the Towers of Bay Ridge, which is on 65th Street between Ridge and Third avenues. “It is hard to imagine how many people could die if that pipeline got into the wrong hands.”

Pipeline fears were the subject of an Aug. 15 public hearing at Fort Hamilton.

“The reason the alleged terrorists targeted the pipeline is because it represents an efficient way to massacre thousands of people in one attack,” Rep. Vito Fossella said at the hearing. “We don’t have enough answers.”

Wait a few weeks, and some answers will soon be in your mailbox and at your local community board meeting room.