WEBVTT - All Eyes on Weymouth: FERC Signals Interest in Environmental Justice 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.480 Early last year, I started hearing from some activists in 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.799 Massachusetts about a natural gas project proposed in their town. 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.400 One woman in particular really thought this was something I 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:14.880 should look into. Her name is Andrea Honore. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.480 But it took me a good year to understand what 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.320 was going on. I never heard of a compressor. I'd 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:28.920 never heard of ferk. I didn't understand the process. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.880 Andrea lives in the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. It's a 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.400 coastal town of around fifty thousand people in the South 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.440 Shore region, about half an hour south of Boston, and 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:44.640 in twenty fifteen, Spectra Energy, a gas company from Texas, 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.480 wanted to put what's called a natural gas compressor right 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:55.200 on the water at the north end of town. Natural 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.600 gas needs a little help to travel the whole length 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.480 of a pipeline, and compressor stations helped to sort of 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.160 goose the gas along the way. If you've never heard 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.760 of these things, it's probably because they usually don't put 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:14.400 them in the middle of cities or even heavily populated 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.760 areas period They're generally placed kind of on the middle 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.720 of nowhere because they explode, sometimes. 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:23.800 Also breaking overnight. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.880 In Green County, an explosion at a compressor station in 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.960 Sycamore had firefighters busy battling flames on Hopkins Run Road. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.479 We're continuing coverage tonight on an explosion that took place 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.080 earlier today. According to the Monahan's Volunteer Fire Department, one 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.520 person has died and two others have been flown out 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:41.440 with burn injuries. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.119 Coverage on Witness Needs five. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.120 The ten starts right. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:47.120 Now, like breaking a ten. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.320 A gas line rupture leads to a big fire and 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:50.920 explosion in Logan County. 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.720 Now we're joined by the Guthrie Fire Chief, Eric Carlow, 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.160 who is on the scene. There, a chief, what happened 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:58.040 out there? Exactly? 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.920 Well, guys, it we had an explosion at a gas 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:03.160 compressure plant. 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.480 But Spectra wanted to put the Weymouth compressor in a 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.480 very populated area right at the foot of a heavily 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.840 trafficked bridge. Here's Honoree again. 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.400 But at the time, Spectra Energy offered my little town 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:23.280 forty seven million dollars to drop official opposition. That's a 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:24.440 lot of money. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.360 She had become somewhat known in the community as an 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.080 advocate for school funding, so when she raised some concerns 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.679 to the mayor about taking that money. He was surprised, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:36.600 but he. 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:38.960 Called and he's like, well, what didn't the schools, you know, 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:41.080 your school advocate. Wouldn't it be really great to have 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.840 that money for the schools? And I'm like, well, yeah, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:45.200 if you want to be a one term mayor, go 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.120 ahead take the money. Like that's not this is absolutely 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.480 not no, there's no amount of money there would So, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.160 you know, he eventually asked around, did his thing. People 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.400 started calling up his ass. It got made more public, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.800 you know, protests and that, and so he was like, Nope, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:02.840 we're not going to take the money. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.160 By that point, Honore had learned about the potential impacts 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.320 of the compressor from a local group called Four River 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:14.400 Residents Against Compressor Station or FRAS for short. One of 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.480 the criticisms of the station is that it would be 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.800 sited at the foot of the four River Bridge. Like 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.240 I said, that's a major commuter bridge, so an explosion there, 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.559 depending on the time of day, could do some serious damage. 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.440 Alice Arena is the president of FRACS. 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:30.680 I kind of hooked into it a little bit, and 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.640 I thought, oh, hell no, how could they put something 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.560 like this on this little tiny piece of land. So 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.840 close to this brand new bridge, so close to a 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.760 sewage pumping station. I mean, it just was madness and 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:46.680 it made no sense. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.720 A lot of people thought that way, and opposition to 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.400 the project started to grow over twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.840 Patrick O'Connor is from Wemouth. Today he's a state senator, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.760 but six years ago he was a city council president 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:02.640 in Weymouth. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:04.600 You know, this is going to be in a large 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.520 population center, the gateway really to two major cities in 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.360 the Conwealth of Massachusetts, Quinsy and Weymouth, and it's going 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.080 to be located next to a brand new bridge that, 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.200 through the state and federal government, we spent over three 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.600 hundred million dollars on. So you know, tens of thousands 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.680 of commuters travel by this compressor station every single day, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.080 so it's not it's not the typical location for one 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.040 of these compressor stations. That's one of that was one 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.600 of the major things that we first sort of looked 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.840 at and thought, this is unusual to be placed in 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:42.039 an area where there's so much activity, both residential and commercial. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.600 That was the real catalyst to fight it, and then 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.240 from there in the research that we've done, and in 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.880 talking with other communities and other stakeholders, you know, we've 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.159 identified a whole host of other things that are wrong 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.039 with these compressor stations and why they shouldn't be in 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.720 areas where people are, you know, regularly congregating. 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.520 One thing O'Connor learned about was a process called a 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.920 blowdown that happens at compressor stations. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.360 So they're basically using thousands of chemicals now to extract 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.640 from the shale this natural gas, and as it's going 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:21.000 through these compressor stations, one of the other components is 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.880 that it's speeding this gas up, and it's taking some 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.400 of those byproducts out of that gas, and then those 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.320 byproducts are captured at the station and then every so often, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.200 you know, they were saying monthly or quarterly, but realistically, 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.040 when you read their filings, it happens about two or 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.760 three times a week. They'll take all that byproduct and 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:41.040 release it into the atmosphere. 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.240 That seems like a potential problem for a lot of reasons, 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.320 but it also has a big immediate negative side effect 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:48.679 for people living nearby. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.840 It stinks, they said, it smells like, you know, rotten eggs. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.919 Last fall, it seemed like this six year fight was 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.800 over the compressor and the pipelines that connects to are 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.080 owned by Canadian energy giant en Bridge. Now they're the 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.000 same folks that own the Line three pipeline you're hearing 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.040 a lot about in Minnesota. The Waymouth project got its 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:16.520 final permits in twenty nineteen, started construction, and in September 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:24.280 twenty twenty was ready to start operating. Normally, that's where 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.719 this story would end. Maybe the activists would launch a lawsuit, 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.279 but it would be an upheld battle and it would 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:35.640 probably take years. That's not what happened here, at least 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.520 not yet. There was an election in January, you may remember, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.080 and that meant a changeup at the federal regulatory Commission 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.480 that governs projects like this, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.080 or FURK. If you listen to this podcast or you 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.479 know me in real life, you know I love to 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.880 nerd out on a good FURK story. Generally I try 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.920 not to bore other people with them. But buckle up, 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.800 because today we're going to enjoy the rarest of things, 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:09.920 a truly dramatic FURK story, and it could have huge implications, 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.760 not just for the folks in Weymouth, but for other 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.560 people living near natural gas infrastructure, and for this country's 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.640 progress on climate action in general, all that coming up 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.560 right after this quick break. I'm Ami Westervelt, and this 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:34.360 is drilled. Activists like Andrea and Alice have been trying 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.360 to get national reporters to pay attention to what's happening 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.160 in Weymouth for years, and so has Miriam Wasser, an 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:46.320 environmental reporter with WBR Boston's and PR news station. Last 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.720 month something happened that made people outside of Massachusetts sit 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:52.680 up and take notice. 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.440 It is now suddenly like this big issue that gas 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.280 companies all over the country are paying attention to. And 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.440 one person I talked to just had this great line 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.520 where he was like, Miriam, this is the Weymouth compressor's 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.520 decoda access pipeline moment. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.200 That might be a stretch, but who knows. Here's what's 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:16.040 been happening in Weymouth since last fall. So, like I 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.560 mentioned before the break, despite a lot of pushback for 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.360 years from local activist groups, the compressor station got its 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.480 permits and started operating in September, and then almost immediately. 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.640 They had an emergency shut down. Turns out this overing 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.400 gasket failed and it wasn't supposed to be used in 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:40.080 this situation. But anyways, workers had to manually shut down 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.839 part of the facility, and in the process they vented 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.160 a lot of natural gas into the area. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.880 People were pretty freaked out, especially the people who had 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.160 been worried about this project from the beginning. And Bridge said, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.640 everything's fine. The emergency system worked like it should. We 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.480 fixed a small maintenance issue, and we're back in business. 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.600 Two weeks after that shutdown, FIRK says, okay, you're good 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.120 to go. Here's your final final permit. Now keep in 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.200 mind this is still the Trump administration's FIRK, which was 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.520 extremely pro oil and gas. The head of the Commission 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.439 at the time was Neil Chatterjee, Mitch McConnell's energy advisor. 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:18.440 And then six days later, the Waymouth compressor has a 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:23.440 second emergency shutdown. This time it's I there was some 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.800 sort of loss of power to the emergency shutdown system 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.120 and it basically, I mean, it did what it's supposed 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.760 to do, right. It lost power, it triggered itself to 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.120 shut down, but again vented a lot of natural gas 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.400 into the area. And people were so alarmed and a 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:46.439 number of our congressional delegates were really alarmed, and they 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.040 reached out to the federal government. 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:53.000 That triggered an investigation from the federal government, specifically from 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.920 the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration or PIMZA. The 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.360 investigation kicked off in October, effectively pausing all activity at 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.520 the Weymouth compressor and activist groups and local legislators took 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.280 that opportunity to appeal to Ferk to say, hey, this 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.840 is what we said was going to happen. Now it's happened. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:18.000 You need to rethink this. Here's State Senator Patrick O'Connor again. 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.440 It was almost an immediate emergency shut down, and then 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.720 right after that there was another one when they started 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.040 to get up and running again. And no one could 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.040 have made a better case for why that compressor station 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.040 shouldn't be there than the company themselves by having those 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:35.000 malfunctions happen. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.440 I should mention that O'Connor is a Republican and this 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.040 is something that I see over and over again that 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.839 when it comes to national discussions in DC, a lot 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.960 of times debates around natural gas and oil and other 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.839 kinds of fossil fuels are kind of in the abstract. 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.040 At the local level, these things are not partisan. When 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.480 there is a pipeline or a compressor station in your 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:04.840 district causing potential harm to your constituents, all of a sudden, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.640 it seems very clear that it's something that you might 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.480 want to do something about. And O'Connor is very frank 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.960 about what he thinks FERK should be doing in situations 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:15.040 like this, you know. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:20.920 Seeing regulatory commissions that have all this authority and power 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.760 make decisions based on what the industry wants them to do. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.240 That practice as a whole, whether it's in healthcare or energy, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.959 or education or wherever it is, just has to end. 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.200 And it's been going on for far too long down 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.839 in DC. So yes, I would hope that not just FORK, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.640 you know, but other agencies see that people are paying 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.080 attention more than they have ever been paying attention to 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.800 what's going on down in our federal government, and that 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.360 we need to actually look out for our taxpayers, look 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.720 out for our neighbors, and you know, not just rubber 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.920 stamp these projects and these initiatives that big, big corporations 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:01.520 put forward. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:07.000 Okay, So the Weymouth compressor was temporarily paused in October 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:11.559 there was this federal investigation going on. Legislators and activists 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.600 were appealing to Furk, and then Firk did something kind 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.439 of weird. They initially declined to rehear the arguments about 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.120 the Weymouth compressor, but they didn't completely shut the idea 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:28.200 of a rehearing down. Oh Furk, you inscrutable beast. Here's 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:29.880 Alice arena with fracks. 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.160 They had to either give us the rehearing or they 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.960 had to deny it. They didn't have a choice, so 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.720 they denied it on November twenty third, but said, but 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.800 you know, maybe we'll think about this later. So it 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.280 was it was a non denial denial. It was kind 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:50.240 of crazy in December. At the commission meeting on December seventeenth. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:55.240 I believe we were on the docket on the agenda 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.320 for this meeting, and we're like, we don't even know 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.520 what it is that they're talking about, but they were 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:01.720 talking about the denial. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.000 Apparently at the December meeting they decided to table the 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.600 denial discussion until January. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.920 So at the January meeting on January eighteenth, three of 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:18.720 the commissioners Chatter, Gye, Glick and Clements voted to deny 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:26.880 the denial double negative, and so we said, well, gosh, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.360 that's wonderful. You denied the denial, but you didn't give 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.280 us the rehearing. So what can we do. So Frank 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:40.280 started a campaign with our allies, you know, across the 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:46.359 state and our members, the state delegation and our federal delegation, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.040 and we went after Frock on the dock and said, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.720 you have to give us the rehearing. You can't. You know, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.640 you've got to either deny it or or approve it, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:57.320 one or the other. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.400 Now by this point, Biden has been inaugurated and a 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.679 guy named Richard Glick has been appointed the FURK Commissioner. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.480 And this seems like a big deal to climate activists 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.600 because Glick has been very outspoken about the fact that 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.200 he thinks FERK ought to be considering environmental justice and 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.920 climate impacts when they evaluate things like pipelines and compressor stations. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.680 What was like super surprising is after this meeting, Commissioner 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.160 Richard Glick got on Twitter and he said, quote, the 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.760 Weymouth Compressor Station raises serious environmental justice questions which we 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.960 need to examine. The communities surrounding the project are regularly 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.560 subjected to high levels of pollution and residents are concerned 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.600 emissions from the station will make things worse. In three 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.200 years at FIRK, i've seen little more than lip service 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.400 paid to environmental justice. This needs to change, and that 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.000 I'm sure, as you know, Amy is like an astounding 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.160 thing to hear from someone within FIRK. 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:57.480 It really is. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.800 That was Wbuur's Miriam laws her again and she's right. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.000 In twenty years reporting on energy and climate change, I 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.080 have never heard a FIRK commissioner say something like this, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.800 let alone put it in writing in public. And then 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.560 came another big surprise at the FIRK meeting in February. 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:18.400 Here's Alice Arena again. 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:24.000 So in February, on February eighteenth, at that meeting, they 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:30.800 opened up another subdocket where they issued an order for 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:36.840 paper briefing on the compressor station. And this order for 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.760 paper briefing kind of says, did we do something wrong? 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:49.360 Did we consider environmental justice? Did we consider safety under 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:56.120 the Natural Gas Act? And what has changed? So? What 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:01.800 has changed since the certificate is in September? And as 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.000 far as we're concerned, what has changed since they issued 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:13.080 the original certificate back in twenty seventeen, and so going 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.840 back to twenty seventeen, we've got lots of things that 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.680 have changed climate, you know, the acceleration of climate change 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.720 going above and beyond when anyone expected. So we've got 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:31.000 that going for us. And also necessity, the gas is worthless. 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.240 The domestic need has gone down, the international need has 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.680 gone down, and so why are you even doing this? 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.000 So that's where we are right now. We are in 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:49.160 this briefing period and the briefs are due technically April fourth, 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.240 but that's a Sunday, so we're saying April second. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.920 The industry is of course also filing briefs and not 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:00.160 just Mbridge, every large gas company and trade group. As 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.280 if Ferk decides to rethink this permit, it might just 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.840 rethink others. Here's State Senator O'Connor again. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.959 Oh, they're all in. When you look at the wee 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.359 an email every time that somebody files, and when you 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.800 look at who's filing, it's all the big players, you know, 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.560 the ones that don't even have a financial interest in 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.040 what's going on in North Weymouth because they know that 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:26.600 this is a real showdown. Ferk is asking some real 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.439 legitimate questions about the operational practices, the public health components, 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.840 and of a lot of other the demand and need 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.840 for natural gas, especially in this region. 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.879 Adam Carlesco with Food and Water Watch brought a lawsuit 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.760 against FERK last year for failing to consider impacts like 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.399 the ones people are concerned about in Weymouth. We covered 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.320 that case if you want to go back and listen. 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.000 I was curious for his take as someone who's been 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.960 frustrated with FERK and gone up against them in court 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.960 over their reputation for rubberstone projects. 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.040 They're willing to open up a docket and look at 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.840 issues that might have been overlooked under a regulatory captured 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.919 FERK under Trump and a lot of the folks that 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.720 were working with in the agency at that time. And 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.399 so that shows me that there's a little bit of 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.240 willingness to listen to public outcry and kind of correct 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.480 mistakes that might have been there and you know, some 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.200 oversight issues that they might have had. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.119 And even if it doesn't, the Commission is signaling in 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.800 a pretty big way that it plans to look more 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.960 closely at projects like these. But Carlasco says he's still 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.439 waiting to see real action from FERK, not just speeches 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:41.200 and tweets. 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.800 I'm not necessarily holding my breath on anything, because while 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:46.520 there's a lot of lip service coming out of the 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:52.560 Commission on the whole, I'm not necessarily, i guess, overly 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.600 optimistic about some of the approaches that they're taking so far. 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:03.040 They're still issuing certificate orders are wholly deficient. They issued 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.560 one on a project that's running through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.720 and New York that is wholly disregarding any sort of 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.119 indirect impacts, specifically downstream combustion. This is supposed to go 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.040 into the New York City metro area, and they completely 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.320 fail to look at how this would impact compliance with 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.560 New York's climate policy laws. And they're not looking at 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.200 how it might incentivize for the drilling within the Marcella's shale, 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.960 despite it coming directly from the Marcella's shale. So they're 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:32.879 wholly ignoring a lot of the issues that are and 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:33.480 play here. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.879 In June, Neil Chatterjee, the former head of FIRK and 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.120 still a commissioner, will leave his seat and Biden will 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.119 appoint another commissioner, so the FIRK that makes a final 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.480 decision on the Waymouth compressor will be very different than 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.320 the one that approved it, replies to the briefs that 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.119 are being prepared now will be doing early May, and 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.480 then Ferk needs time to read through it all and 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.920 discuss it, so it's unlikely there will be a decision 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.960 until June or July. In the meantime, Alice Arena is 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.680 enjoying an unfamiliar sensation optimism. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.080 When it all started to happen, We're just standing there 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:10.760 with our hands up in the air, going what the 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.040 heck is going on here? It's like we're so used 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.560 to just being beaten on the head by Fark and 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.920 by all of the agencies that all of a sudden 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:18.760 we're sitting in the sand. 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:42.680 What that's it for this time? Thanks for listening. We'll 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.159 be sure to update you on this project as there's news, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.760 and don't forget we'll be back soon with a new 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:54.919 narrative season on the natural gas industry in general. So 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.720 make sure you're subscribed so you won't miss that. Big 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:02.480 thank you to our latest Patreon subscriber. They are Daniella Osiander, 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.600 Jake Full and Fiona Writer. If you would like an 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.359 ad free feed of the podcast plus bonus content. Go 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.359 check out patreon dot com slash drilled. You can also 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.920 access exclusive Drilled merchandise, and you can feel free to 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.480 drop me a note over there about stories that you 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.760 want to see or maybe features that would be interesting 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.080 for patrons too. Thanks for your support and we'll see 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:28.680 you next time.