Gas Pipeline Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

Dear Dedham Neighbors,

This Monday, June 1st at 7:00 PM at Dedham Middle School, the Board of Selectmen will host a meeting to discuss the planned high pressured gas pipeline that will cross through the town. In this very busy time of school concerts, end of the year school fairs, soccer games, weekend excursions, and graduations, this important meeting date may not be on your calendar.

Many of you will not have the honor of having this pipeline cross directly in front of your home less than 16 feet from your living room and 3 feet below the ground. Many of you may say this will not directly impact me, my home, or my family. Instead, this pipeline will impact the lives of every resident today and into the future.

If your children attend Melrose Middle School, you have cause for concern. If your children play at Memorial Field, you have cause for concern. If your children play soccer fall, spring, or summer on Gonzalez Field, you have cause for concern. The pipeline will criss cross Gonzlaez field where “there is knowledge that hazardous materials are on the property. These materials might be discovered on the property once they put the pipeline in” (Dedham Board of Selectman Minutes April 6, 2015). Some hazardous materials on some soccer cleats is no big deal? We will all just dust them off on our way off the field. Breathing in some unnamed hazardous materials while playing at Memorial’s playground or watching a fall football game is no big deal? We will all just take short shallow breaths. No worries for the conservation land nearby; it is just some unknown hazardous materials swallowed by some small animals.

No big deal, right? The high pressured gas pipeline will end in a regulating station in West Roxbury across from an active blasting rock quarry about a mile beyond Dedham’s borders. A pipeline across from a quarry doesn’t quite sound like a very safe idea? Well, it must not be such big blasting that occurs at the quarry. Neighbors of the quarry report shaking of their homes and cracks in their wall from the blasts. A little crack in a gas pipeline must be safe? A little shaking of a gas pipeline must be within acceptable guidelines? So, when there is an explosion or a leak, could we expect the whole town of Dedham to look like a different place? How far does a gas explosion actually go?

I am not a lawyer. I am not an engineer. I am not a city planner. I am not a federal energy regulator. However, this pipeline sounds a bit dangerous.

Come to the meeting on Monday, June 1st to learn more. Ask any of the following:

• Wonder why the Dedham Board of Selectmen already issued permits for Spectra Energy to begin construction? Why did the Dedham Board of Selectmen grant rights for Spectra energy to store construction vehicles and equipment in the town?
• In contrast, why does the Mayor of Boston and Boston City Council insist they will issue no permits to Spectra Energy?
• Why did the Conservation Commission also grant permission to Spectra Energy to begin construction?
• Why did Parks and Recreation grant access to Gonzalez Field?
• What did Dedham taxpayers get in return for this high pressured gas pipeline?
• What is the plan to evacuate the town WHEN (not if) there is a gas explosion or gas leak? What is the plan to evacuate the students of the schools less than a mile away? How will we get the order to evacuate? What is the evacuation route we should take?
• What is the known unnamed hazardous materials that lies below Gonzalez Field and under our children’s soccer cleats?
• Were there really any other routes that didn’t include an urban residential area considered by Spectra?
• Why does the federal government not care? Why can’t our federal senators and representatives help? Why can’t our state senators and representatives intervene on our behalf?

Wondering too? Please add your questions in the comments below. And, come June 1st to Dedham Middle School at 7:00 PM and ask your elected officials.

Sincerely,

M. Whitfield