Brooklyn, NY – Today’s breach of an active National Grid work zone at Manhattan and Montrose avenues in Brooklyn presented a public safety hazard for our employees and the public.  While the company is open to hearing opinions and positions on a variety of topics related to its business and respects the right to peaceful protest, it must be done safely. 

“The safety of our employees and the communities we serve is the top priority at National Grid,” said John Bruckner, President National Grid New York.  “Work zone safety is a matter of life and death.  We provide extensive training, personal protective equipment, and specific procedures to ensure our workers safely return home to their families and to keep our communities safe.” 

This is the second time that protestors have breached a work zone site, putting the safety of the participants and others in jeopardy.  The company works with local authorities to help maintain safety in the community.

“At National Grid, we work every day to safely and reliably meet the energy needs of our customers. More than 1.9 million homes and businesses in the downstate region depend on us to deliver the energy they need to heat their homes and run their businesses,” added Bruckner, who’s also the company’s Safety Officer.  “Our network moves natural gas to customers throughout neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and on Long Island.  National Grid continues to move forward on clean energy initiatives and consistently performs maintenance work and plans system integrity projects which are critical to providing quality service to customers.  That’s part of our obligation as a critical service provider.”

The Metropolitan Natural Gas Reliability Project is one of those integrity projects.  There’s been a lot of misinformation about the project.  It does not bring additional supply to New York, instead, it is designed to move existing supplies of natural gas more efficiently through the system and help alleviate existing network constraints.  It’s like adding an extra lane to a very busy road to help reduce traffic congestion.

“This project was approved in 2016 and has been in progress for the past three years.  There’s an extensive community outreach program with residents directly along the route in advance of construction, notices distributed to businesses and local community leaders, and a dedicated project website with weekly construction updates,” said Bruckner. “We’re working in compliance with all city and state rules and regulations to complete any work.  Today’s work zone breach was an unfortunate and truly dangerous action and should not happen again.”

About National Grid

National Grid (NYSE: NGG) is an electricity, natural gas, and clean energy delivery company serving more than 20 million people through our networks in New York and Massachusetts. National Grid is focused on building a smarter, stronger, cleaner energy future — transforming our networks with more reliable and resilient energy solutions to meet state climate goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.