Special to the Record
Several local environmental advocacy groups, including GreenRoots, Mothers Out Front, and Boston Park Advocates, are joining the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) in a lawsuit against National Grid. CLF officials state that the plans to sue National Grid for federal and state violations are its latest effort to prevent methane leaks that pose explosive dangers to communities, kill trees, and cost families and businesses money for gas that never reaches their home or office.
“National Grid is playing a dangerous and expensive game of whack-a-mole with its ancient, leaky gas pipelines, and families and businesses are taking the hit,” said Heather Govern, Vice President of CLF’s Clean Air and Water Program.
“These continuous gas leaks are not just costly, they jeopardize lives, destroy homes, and worsen urban heat by suffocating trees. Band-Aids on aging gas pipelines are not solutions. Our communities need a safer, cleaner approach now.” A notice of intent to sue was sent on Tuesday to National Grid outlining what CLF states are the violations of federal and state laws and the potential for court-imposed fines of up to nearly $100,000 per day for the continued leaks.
In a press release, CLF stated that a street survey it conducted showed National Grid pipelines leaking toxic levels of methane, which worsens climate change, kills trees, and creates explosion hazards in dense neighborhoods. Methane levels from leaks were dangerously high in Chelsea and the Boston neighborhoods of Chinatown, Dorchester, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale, Roxbury, South End, and along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Back Bay – and many of these neighborhoods are already exposed to high levels of pollution and have limited access to trees and green space, according to the CLF survey. CLF found more than 200 public shade trees dead or dying from methane poisoning from leaking gas pipelines.
The loss of public shade trees in urban neighborhoods creates more dangerous heat islands and makes air pollution worse as temperatures rise this summer, according to the press release. CLF’s survey also found 15 locations where leaks are serious enough to pose threats of fire and explosion and alerted National Grid to the danger spots. The pipeline system is aging with hundreds of new explosive-level leaks popping up every quarter, sometimes in the same location where repairs were previously made, according to National Grid’s own data, the CLF release stated. CLF’s notice letter calls for National Grid to implement a long-term solution to eliminate methane leaks and transition from dangerous natural gas.
The company is currently involved in two residential projects in Massachusetts that will provide heating and cooling via geothermal heat pump technology.
At a presentation to the Winthrop Town Council last week, Mothers Out Front Winthrop advocated for that town to transition from gas to clean heat. “Natural gas is methane, which is responsible for one-third of climate disruption so far,” said Christine Kinsey of Mothers Out Front.
“It is 86 times more dangerous to our climate than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years.” National Grid did not respond to a request for comment by deadline on Wednesday.