Dear LDTC Members:
As many of you know, Eversource’s Longmeadow pipeline is proposed to run north through Longmeadow into Forest Park and Springfield Environmental Justice neighborhoods. Please consider signing this Springfield Climate Justice Coalition petition as an expression of our support for their resistance.
— Michele Marantz, Chair
With the threatened construction of a biomass plant in Springfield defeated, we are called upon again to help save our air, health, and safety in Springfield. The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition asks that community members in the city surrounding towns sign a petition to Eversource opposing the proposed new natural gas pipeline.
The record-breaking heat, severe flooding and smoke from the Western fires we’ve experienced this summer signal a potential landmark in global climate change. In the face of this crisis. Eversource (formerly Columbia Gas) wants to build a new high-pressure gas pipeline into downtown Springfield from Longmeadow. We do not need this unhealthy, climate-changing, dangerous, costly expansion of the natural gas infrastructure. Eversource should withdraw this project and contribute instead to a just transition to clean, renewable energy.
Gas pipelines leak methane. Methane and its burning worsen respiratory diseases, and Springfield continues to have one of the highest asthma rates in the country. Experts say cutting fossil fuel emissions, especially methane, is the only way to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Gas pipelines explode. Springfield suffered a traumatic gas explosion in 2012.
The new Massachusetts “Next Generation Climate Roadmap” law requires that the state transition to clean energy and cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030. Springfield gas customers will pay the price of the new pipeline, facing even higher rates as the number of customers shrinks. And yet, Eversource still proposes to build a pipeline it has never demonstrated the need for.
We of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition say no. We say our rate-payer dollars should go to pay for clean, renewable, safe and climate-friendly alternatives available now. We say we need to hold our government leaders accountable for continuing the good work of facilitating and financing the green transition.
If you live and/or work in Springfield and surrounding affected area, please add your voice to our online petition demanding that Eversource stop plans for a pipeline we don’t need but will be paying for for decades. Individuals and organizations are encouraged to make their voices heard. Please sign on for yourself, and for your organization if authorized to do so.
Petition Purpose:
Eversource's proposed new Longmeadow-Springfield pipeline is costly, climate-changing, dangerous, unhealthy, and unnecessary. We demand that Eversource withdraw this project and contribute instead to a just transition to clean, renewable energy.
Click here for the petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-eversource-springfield-gas-pipeline