The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) has written Governor Charlie Baker to ask him to drop his support for new natural gas pipelines until the state and federal agencies conduct comprehensive analyses to measure their effect on the climate and human health.
The Commission’s letter comes as the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards (MAHB) is also calling on Governor Baker to consider the documented hazards and potential risks of the production, transmission and burning of fracked natural gas. The MAHB says that such studies are especially important since Attorney General Maura Healey has determined that the Commonwealth does not need new pipelines and should focus instead on cleaner and healthier forms of renewable energy.
Studies have identified toxic and cancer causing substances in natural gas including benzene, toluene, xylenes, cyclohexane, and formaldehyde. Children in homes with poorly ventilated gas stoves were more likely to have been diagnosed with wheezing, asthma, or bronchitis than children in homes with gas stoves ventilated out of the home.
The BPHC letter states, “We join members of the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards in strongly recommending that a formal Comprehensive Health Impact Assessment (CHIA) be required of all future natural gas infrastructure projects or expansions in the Commonwealth prior to state permitting.”
The announcement by the BPHC was praised by the Massachusetts Sierra Club. “The City of Boston is joining cities and towns across the Commonwealth calling on Governor Baker to conduct studies to fully understand the health hazards of fracked gas pipelines being proposed throughout the state,” said Emily Norton of the Sierra Club. “We can’t stand by and allow new pipelines to be built without thoroughly understanding the potential health consequences.”
The BPHC letter cites the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline specifically as a project for which a CHIA should be conducted to assess “the potential health and safety risks presented by this pipeline.”
The Massachusetts Medical Society and the American Medical Association have also adopted resolutions calling for public health impact studies before gas pipelines, or other kinds of natural gas infrastructure, are approved.
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