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Enbridge spokesman Max Bergeron said in an email that the company notified all officials as required. He did not specify the reason for the gas release. The safety of the facility and surrounding area were not impacted by this occurrence, and we are continuing to proceed with safety as our highest priority, he said in the email.
The compressor station is part of Enbridge’s Atlantic Bridge project, which expands the company’s natural gas pipelines from New Jersey into Canada. Since the station was proposed in 2015, residents have argued it presents serious health and safety risks.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey visited the compressor site last week to announce he has refiled legislation that would block construction of any compressor station that would aid energy companies in exporting natural gas overseas.
The Weymouth gas compressor station. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
On Tuesday morning, the Weymouth Natural Gas Compressor Station released a large quantity of gas into the air above the facility. The cause of the unplanned release remains unclear, but the company that owns and operates the facility, Enbridge, said it’s “continuing to gather information.”
Under state law, Enbridge is required to notify state and local officials if it vents more than 10,000 standard cubic feet of gas an amount roughly equivalent to what the average U.S. home uses in two months.
According to Enbridge spokesman Max Bergeron, the gas was released in a controlled manner through the compressor station s tall vent stack and the safety of the facility and surrounding area were not impacted by this occurrence.
Lawmakers push regulators to reexamine compressor approval
WEYMOUTH – Members of Weymouth s congressional delegation want federal regulators to reconsider their decision to allow the compressor station on the banks of the Fore River to go into service.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch and U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren recently sent a letter to Richard Glick, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking that the commission rescind the in-service authorization issued for the compressor station in September.
“The site is located within a half mile of Quincy Point and Germantown – “environmental justice communities” that suffer persistent environmental health disparities due to socioeconomic and other factors – as well as nearly 1,000 homes, a water treatment plant and a public park,” the legislators wrote in the letter. “An estimated 3,100 children live or go to school within a mile of the site, and more than 13,000 children attend school
WEYMOUTH The natural gas compressor station on the banks of the Fore River is expected to go back online soon, about four months after two emergency shutdowns at the plant.
Max Bergeron, a spokesman for the Canadian company that built the compressor station, said in an email Friday, Jan. 22 that the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has approved the station going into full service.
Bergeron said the station would “methodically be placed in service” with oversight from the federal agency.
“We expect to have the ability to start flowing gas through the compressor station for our customers in the coming days,” Bergeron said in the email.