As reported by the Journal News, four Resist Spectra protectors occupied an AIM fracked gas pipeline for 16 hours, blocking construction just hundreds of feet from the Indian Point nuclear power plant, on the bank of the Hudson River near New York City.
The non-violent civil disobedience action, which ended with arrests and trespassing charges against the four, as well as their support team, was held on Indigenous Peoples Day, as a solidarity action in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's resistance to the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline in North Dakota.
Spectra's AIM fracked natural gas pipeline is located immediately adjacent to the two Indian Point reactors, near New York City. This raises the specter of a large-scale natural gas explosion and/or fire, plunging the Indian Point reactors and their high-level radioactive waste storage pools, into meltdown mode.
More than 20 million people live or work within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point, with little to no prospect of being able to evacuate in an emergency.
As documented by Dr. Ed Lyman of Union of Concerned Scientists in a 2004 report entitled "Chernobyl on the Hudson?", a catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity would result -- depending on weather conditions -- is more than 40,000 acute radiation poisoning deaths; more than 500,000 latent cancer fatalities; and property damage measure in the trillions (yes, with a T!) of dollars.