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Residents on both sides of Boston/Dedham line rally to oppose natural-gas pipeline
By adamg on Sun, 07/26/2015 - 6:28pm
West Roxbury and Dedham residents - joined by supporters from as far away as Bedford - briefly stopped traffic at the town line on Washington Street today to protest a high-pressure gas pipeline that would run from Westwood to Centre and Grove streets in West Roxbury.
Roughly 200 people marched from Gonzalez Field in Dedham Center to the town line by the car wash and the former Hess station to tell Algonquin Gas Transmission to find another route for the pipeline, which would run down Washington and Grove streets to a new transfer station across from the West Roxbury quarry - or to just cancel the project completely.
Dedham residents were concerned about the potential impact on Gonzalez Field and the town water supply:
As they massed on the sidewalk along Washington Street on either side of the line, protesters chanted "We need wind and solar fast, we don't want your fracking gas" and "Let's stop the Spectra pipe, people of Massachusetts unite."
Protesters praised local officials who have worked to try to block the pipeline, which won federal approval in March. Although Dedham recently lost a court battle to at least temporarily halt the project, Boston continues to battle it in court.
One woman, in a hurry to get to the protest, went online to find a New Hampshire protest sign, which she quickly adapted for West Roxbury:
Drummers supplied a beat:
With the help of a Boston Police officer, who parked his cruiser across the outbound side of Washington, protesters briefly occupied that side of the street, then hopped onto the median for photos.
They then marched back to Gonzalez Field in Dedham.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
I hope that there weren't any
I hope that there weren't any ambulances with dying patients stuck in the backed-up traffic. All these kids should be charged with attempted murder and their parents be sent to Guantanamo!! It's clear that with their irresponsible actions, they've removed any and all credibility from their cause.
Oh wait, now that I've almost finished typing my comment, I realize that it's about a pipeline, not black lives. Of course that changes everything! (sarcasm)
Occupy Boston
I recall Occupiers blocking traffic in the Dewey Square and Greenway areas numerous times, without anyone complaining that they were attempting murder.
and I remember...
...lengthy threads here about just that very subject. Didn't say 'murder' though. Possible manslaughter charge, but I would defer to a lawyer on that one. Also, apparently the protesters here obeyed police, made their point, then moved on. If there was an emergency situation, they look like the kind of crowd that would cooperate with letting them through.
Don't pedestrians and horses
Don't pedestrians and horses have the right of way? Cars must yield. Pedestrians can be ticketed for jay-walking. Obstructing traffic is another misdemeanor. You can be arrested if you refuse when an officer of the law asks you to stop obstructing traffic.
There's no report here about anyone obstructing traffic for the purpose of protesting the pipeline.
At the last pipeline protest, a Dedham elected official got himself arrested.
Haha, did you not even spare
Haha, did you not even spare a glance at the pictures before you cut&pasted your generic right-wing rant?
I was there today and I'm 38 and the parent of a high school student. Personally, I went for the sake of Indigenous solidarity, but I have to say the great majority of the crowd was middle-aged white folks (reflective of those who live in the affected neighborhoods, as it should be). The were also some young people, quite a few elders, and several families with young children - and even a couple disabled folks.
Nobody in Boston wants this pipeline, but the multinational corporation that stands to profit from the infrastructure for exporting fracked gas has so far been allowed by the courts to disregard local concerns and opposition by our Congresspeople, Boston's Mayor, etc. The chair of the Dedham Board of Selectmen even got arrested attempting to block the start of construction last month: https://digboston.com/special-feature-dedham-and-goliath/
Next time try doing a little research before you open your mouth, or maybe even read the article you're commenting on, so you don't come off so ignorant.
West Roxbury
has a diverse population.It also has many families, young famies, lots of kids of all ages. It isn't just 'old white people'.
Hi, I did not mean to
Hi, I did not mean to criticize the demographics of the group, or to make overgeneralizations about the population of neighborhoods of Dedham and West Roxbury. As I said, I think it's right that people stand up an speak out on decisions that they personally will have to live with the consequences of. I myself live in a different neighborhood of Boston, and went to the protest because of my beliefs about the damage extraction of fossil fuels does to the communities and ecosystem where extraction is done, and also in solidarity with my neighbors who live on the pipeline route.
My comment was in response to the first commenter, who in his haste to condemn people's exercise of their first-amendment rights, neglected to realize that his caricature of the protesters as "kids [who] should be charged with attempted murder and their parents be sent to Guantanamo!!" made him sound absolutely ridiculous and like he hadn't bothered to read the article or look at the photos.
Um....
The original commenter was mimicking the language used by people on this site when talking about the protests connected with the black lives matter protests, especially the people who blocked the highway. The point of the comment was to show how different protests with demographics get talked about on-line. The fact that it was stated as sarcasm at the end is another good clue.
Orderly Photo Op
There was no backed up traffic.
This was a brief, less than 10 second photo op.
Far less than waiting for a red light to change.
OK, so looking at the pics, it's about...
1. Protecting the water and air on Gonzalez Field. From what?
2. Protecting solar and wind from gas.
3. Stop pipelines. I guess gas fueled heating systems run on unicorn farts.
4. Stop NH pipelines, easily converted to other pipelines.
5. Protecting Mass from fracked gas.
So, it's not really about the safety of a pipeline near a dead volcano that is a granite quarry, with blasting. That's an engineering problem. It's about stopping the building of infrastructure for a reliable gas supply that competes with wind, solar, nukes (OMG!!NUKES!!) and, drum roll, hydro from Canada.
There are two types of Boston protesters
There are the homeowners who worry about their neighborhood blowing up, and there are the folks who see this as a fight against fracking and the like. They may have common interests, but the original protest, and the city's official effort to block the pipeline, is based on protecting homeowners.
Mr. DMCBoston, the WRL is a high-pressure transmission line
Since I live in the Grove, right next to the quarry, I am doubly concerned. I'm protesting the unsafe location of a high-pressur transmission line. I'm a 49 year old single female who hopes to live many more years in my little house. Who was the heartless, sick person who made the decision to place a transmission line in a densely populated part of a city, anyway? I bet he or she did a risk-reward analysis and concluded that some blue collar folks in a working class neighborhood are expendable.
People from several groups united. While we all have different concerns, each of us agree that we don't want this 700 psi transmission line placed under a soccer field, where children play, under Washington Street next to other utilities, or near a blasting quarry (especially not an M& R station next to a busy intersection and blasting quarry). (The M&R station poses a whole other set of concerns around air quality and noise pollution. This honestly concerns me equally, as my house is located just a few hundred yards from the proposed site.)
Natural gas can be very dangerous. It is one thing when one house blows up because of a gas leak. It is entirely another thing if a transmission line blows. Explosions happen all the time:
The people marching and the drivers passing by honking in solidarity with us spanned many generations and ethnic groups. We were respectful and mindful of traffic. We were not radical. We were ordinary American citizens acting on our first amendment right to free speech.
Off Topic
Haven't been in town in awhile.....
Does that neighborhood sign still say Thomas M Menino?
Nope
Nope, it's been updated. In the photo you can barely make out the edge of the H in WalsH.
Sucks to be in the middle
I have sympathy for Westie in this, but there needs to be some accounting of energy and land use politics in Mass. I wouldn't want a pipeline in my neighborhood, same way I was against those plans a fews years to move ethanol over the Grand Junction to the tank farm, private gain with public risk.
But energy costs are higher in New England than anywhere else in the US- it's all well and good to say that we should move to solar or hydro or nuclear or to wind, but none of those sectors are either developed enough (solar, wind) or the necessary infra is considered too intrusive (hydro, nuclear) to swoop in and save the day. It's going to require some combination of State support for alternative energy beyond what they engage in today, probably require commercial and residential users to pursue energy conservation yet more aggressively (and Mass is actually quite good at that in a national context), and even then somebody, somewhere will have to swallow a bitter pill and suffer the construction of pipelines/power lines. I wouldn't want it to be me, nor would anybody else I can imagine, but then the only alternatives are to continue with high-energy costs or start to subsidize alternatives.
Do you really think this pipe
Do you really think this pipe line will benefit us little people? Are you new here??
I'm not new. A pipeline
I'm not new. A pipeline through Westie carries minor public benefits, major private benefits, and carries major public risks - I'd be happy to see it stopped in its tracks. The price of electricity in Mass is still above the US norm, however; New England + New York account for the highest prices in the continental US. Now is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but it's a not a situation whereby the state should dawdle in proposing any alternatives to ng pipelines. Cities don't want LNG terminals, they don't want pipelines, they don't want power lines, and they don't want dangerous shipments - and that's good, but eventually the State's going to have to promote an alternative to the current energy infra or some community is going to get shafted with a pipeline or something else they don't want. Small picture, big picture.
Pipeline
Yes we need more gas supply, but maybe it would be a smarter move not to put the high pressure gas line and it transmission/ distribution station directly next to an active quarry?
Safety concerns represent fear mongering, not based on science.
The idea of a very large rock being blasted out of the quarry, hurtling through the air and badly damaging a metering and regulating station is not a realistic scenario. Vibration is a non-issue for the very strong steel pipes used in pipeline construction. The FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) determined that such concerns were unfounded.
The original NMBY protesters seem to have been grasping at straws in an attempt to prevent the pipeline being built in their neighborhood.
Is there a good reason to build this next to an active quarry
instead of somewhere else that doesn't raise these concerns?
Actually
The idea of a large boulder hurtling through the air and landing on the M&R station is realistic. Just ask the neighbors on Centre Terrace, further away from the quarry than the M&R station, about the boulders that landed in their yards.
Ethanol vs LNG
Ethanol is the stuff in beer, while natural gas (including LNG) is primarily methane, the stuff in farts.
GP wanted to haul ethanol via
GP wanted to haul ethanol via the Grand Junction, I don't know what exactly where ethanol slotted into the plans for their facility in Revere, but I'm pretty sure it was ethanol and not LNG - unless there's some distinction I'm not aware of.
EDIT: i can see what your point is, it was ethanol, but wrote LNG. My bad.
They wanted to use the whole Fitchburg Line
as well as the Grand Junction and a section of the Rockport/Newburyport line.
Orderly Photo Op
This was an very orderly photo op conducted in less time that a car would wait at a red light. No traffic was delayed - it was peaceful and quick.
This is a protest against an unnecessary pipeline, dangerously placed next to a blasting quarry.
Fix the 2000 natural gas leaks in Boston and there will be enough to heat over 200,000 homes.
How do you heat your home?
The reason for building any pipeline like this, is to be able to deliver (and sell) natural gas to customers that want to buy it. This natural gas is used to heat your water, heat your home, and cook food.
What technology would the protesters like to see people use to heat their homes? The three options are natural gas, oil, or electric:
Electric is prohibitively expensive, and most of it is coming from natural gas anyway. It's also inherently less efficient to convert the natural gas into heat, then into energy, and then back into heat again.
Oil is also a fossil fuel, and has worse emissions than natural gas.
Natural gas heat is the cheapest and most efficient option, and would be even cheaper if there were more large-scale pipelines coming in to the Boston metro area from the west. Local pipelines are necessary to deliver gas to end-users, and they'll need to be built and periodically replaced in order to maintain the safest distribution system.
Again, getting back to the original protesters ...
Many of them were not arguing against the idea of a pipeline and "metering and regulating" station, just the idea of putting it through a densely populated area and next to a quarry that has in the past sent rocks hurtling across the street during blasting. Even Algonquin/Spectra had alternate routes for the pipeline; they just preferred this one for some reason.
The DEDHAM protesters don't
The DEDHAM protesters don't give a damn about the quarry. They don't want the pipeline going through their town. Guess how many of them heat/cook with natural gas? NIMBY frauds.
Here's my gripe about the protesters
Yes, the original ones have a great point, and I love to pile on West Roxbury. I am no expert on these things, but vibrations and high pressure natural gas pipelines don't seem to go together.
On the other hand, the anti-natural gas folk, who are probably friends with the anti-coal powered plant and anti-nuclear energy folk and most likely associate with the "hydro power is bad for fish and indigenous peoples" crowd, are infiltrating this movement, which is purely based on safety. Eventually, it will be about keeping natural gas from the area, which, as someone who heats his home with the energy source in addition to obtaining electricity from mostly natural gas and nuclear power plants, I cannot support. At the end of the day, we want warm houses in the winter and electricity year round, so we need natural gas.
If the people in West Roxbury keep their message solid, the public will line up behind them. If not, they fear becoming NIMBYs, which is not good. They've got a point. Heck, I'd support that pipeline coming by my house before they put it next to the quarry.
OK, where do you live? I'll support moving the tranmission line
to your house. I appreciate the offer.
Not near a quarry, or a blasting zone
I don't see why an option like straight up Washington Street isn't out there. It has to be a money decision.
I'm a big fan of nuclear (clean, safe when done right) but I wouldn't put a plan on an earthquake fault line, either. These things can be done safely.
No new fossil fuel infastructure
I appreciate all the concerns and complexities raised in this thread.
I want to add that a big concern for many of us who were there (and I'll corroborate that there was no significant blocking of traffic) is simply the investing of resources into new fossil fuel infrastructure. I think it's a great idea to repair what infrastructure we have to be more efficient and safer, as one writer mentioned. Given that we are fighting to keep warming under 2 degrees celcius, which will already be catastrophic, we need to keep most of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground. I am not naive enough to think that is easy. I'm just saying it's an important goal to have the global community behind. Protesting the installation of a new gas pipeline through a neighborhood is one way of getting publicity for the fight to move away from fossil fuels. It brings the issue home.
For the more economically minded, check out file:///Users/shoshanafriedman/Downloads/econmist%20report%20on%20climate%20change%20(1).pdf
A better way to achieve your goal
Go get an engineering degree and work on making it so I don't need natural gas to heat my home and power my computer.
Now, before you trot out the solar panacea, I will note that I have trees on the south side of my house, so unless you hate trees and can figure out what to do in the winter when there is less sun, keep that idea as but one tool.
Honestly, if people would stop shitting on nuclear power, we'd be in a better place. France gets most of their electricity from the humble atom, but even they feel the pain when Russia threatens to turn off the natural gas spigot.
So, let's get this pipeline built. Wait, isn't it going by a blasting zone? You see how you distracted me from that.
"No Fracked Gas in MA"
I live near West Rox and often see these folks around and whenever they talk to me, they all object specifically to the fact that this pipeline will bring fracked gas through the state. They all hate fracking. And yet, the lines that we currently have in place almost certainly bring fracked gas to the state and fuel their homes/appliances.
If someone wanted to put a pipeline by my house, that would be fine with me. The old ones leak and are probably more unsafe than new ones.
750 psi.
The pipelines already in our streets are distribution pipelines with 20 to 60 psi. pressure. I don't want to have this dangerous 750 psi.transmission pipeline in front of my house or your house either.