National Grid plans to build a one-mile intermediate-pressure pipeline in the Back Bay/South End to provide gas to new buildings that are currently under construction. The pipeline will start at Berkeley Street in the South End and end on Belvidere Street in the Back Bay.
To date there has been limited public input regarding this pipeline, in spite of multiple requests by BCEC for a more robust public process before the City approved this new fossil-fuel infrastructure.
In response to growing opposition to this pipeline, this public meeting is being held by the City of Boston’s Office of Neighborhood Services and is co-sponsored by the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) in order to have National Grid answer questions from NABB, BCEC, and interested residents. Sought are further details about the project, facts about the pipeline’s necessity and worthiness, and information as to how the City reconciles the effect more gas infrastructure will have on climate change and our carbon footprint with the City’s efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
Here are the questions submitted to National Grid in anticipation of the public meeting: