A pipeline's being expanded 400 ft from my home – wouldn't you be worried? | Courtney M Williams

The Spectra Energy pipeline expansion has been given the go-ahead, but inadequate safeguards make me scared for my children's health

The Keystone XL pipeline was vetoed by President Obama last year as being antithetical to the nation's climate goals. Yet fights against pipelines continue to rage across the country - including 400 feet from my home in New York state, where a proposed pipeline next to the troubled Indian Point nuclear plant has spurred fears of a Fukushima-like scenario, with New York City lying squarely in an evacuation zone.

Spectra Energy, a Texas-based gas company, owns a 9,000-plus-mile pipeline network that stretches from Texas across the midwest and through the north-east, all the way to Canada and the coast. The company is in the process of expanding the north-east section from a 26in pipeline to a 42in high-pressure pipeline in a project called the Algonquin Incremental Market (Aim) Expansion.