Hunger Strike Tour Opposed To Peabody Generator Hits Home

PEABODY, MA – One full week after starting a hunger strike to protest the planned 60-megawatt fossil fuel-powered generator set for construction at the Waters River substation, seven members of the climate group 350 Mass were planning to be at Peabody’s Courthouse Square Tuesday as part of a passionate plea to stop the project.

The event culminates a week of protests asking the state to step in and re-examine the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company’s Project 2015A to build a gas- and oil-powered generator capable of providing electricity to 14 municipal energy communities – including Marblehead and Peabody – in times of extreme weather or "peak" energy demand.

The generator gained final approval from the state Department of Public Utilities last summer with a state order from Gov. Charlie Baker or action from Secretary of Environmental and Energy Services Kathleen Theoharides to reopen the environmental review process among the few viable options left to halt the impending project.

"The extremity is simply because nothing else seems to make a dent," Sue Donaldson told Patch of the hunger strike on Tuesday. "It just feels like what else can you do at this point?"

Donaldson said the Peabody generator is the group's "poster child" to protest greater issues involved with government oversight agencies' allowance of continued reliance on fossil fuels amid the climate crisis.

"We are all pretty seasoned activists," Donaldson said. "We have all protested, and rallied, and gotten arrested, and nothing else seems to have slowed people down. We really wanted to do something to highlight the urgency of the whole issue."

MMWEC representatives have argued that the generator is necessary to ensure the continued delivery of energy in extreme conditions while protecting consumers from the potential price spikes of purchasing that power on the surge market. They have also said the generator is expected to operate about 239 hours a year and that it will be 94 percent more efficient than comparable generators across the state.

But fierce opponents of the project — including the hunger strikers — say that any new use of fossil fuels further endangers the future of the planet.

"Our house is on fire," 350 Mass member Judith Black, of Marblehead, told Patch. "It's amazing to me that everyone doesn't have this at the top of their list of change. Our government has been criminal in its lack of action.

"They are looking at much too small a picture. If you think the most important thing you need to do is get the most energy at the lowest price point, you're not looking at the most important thing that we're destroying our planet. Conservation should be our No. 1 line of attack here."

Hunger strikers are demanding a health and safety review of the planned construction of the generator in Peabody, a social and environmental justice community they note is already impacted by other fossil fuel facilities.

MMWEC representatives said at a public forum last spring that while other sites for the generator were examined, essentially because the Peabody site was already disturbed with energy infrastructure, putting another generator there would cause less impact than developing a new site.

MMWEC did make some changes to the initial proposal, including Peabody Municipal Light Plant's pledge to wind down one of the other generators at the site when the new one is up and running, but 350 Mass members said any addition of fossil fuel power violates the spirit of the state's environmental roadmap to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

The hunger strike tour included stops in Boston, Marblehead, Hull, MMWEC's Ludlow headquarters, Hadley and Holden.

"It's an issue of survival," Black said. "We are really hoping (the state) will open the health and safety studies and through that stop this plant."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)