To limit Chelsea pollution
WHEN THE city of Chelsea in 1996 built a new school complex for all the city's more than 1,300 public elementary school children, it had a right to expect that the already substantial air pollution in the neighborhood would not get worse. But that could happen if state officials approve a new power plant a few hundred feet from the school.
The developer says the plant on Chelsea Creek would burn the cleanest diesel oil and, by reducing the need for dirtier power sources nearby, actually improve Chelsea air quality. It might well do that, but in light of the uncertainties surrounding electricity production in the brave new world of deregulation, state officials should encourage the developer to find a different site.
Chelsea already has to deal with all the traffic using the Tobin Bridge and Route 1, oil tank farms, the state's largest road-salt depot, and several hazardous waste sites. Its 35,000 residents breathe the exhaust of tankers in Chelsea Creek and jets from Logan. A couple of miles to the west of the school is the Mystic Station power plant in Everett.
According to a 2005 Northeastern University study, Chelsea is the state's third most environmentally over-burdened city. Diesel exhaust in Chelsea is five times the US average, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA sets a pollution level beyond which chronic, cancer-causing health effects occur. Chelsea's diesel exhaust exceeds that level by 20 percent. Its rates of asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases are well above state averages.
The developer of the proposed 250-megawatt quick-start reserve and peaking power plant is Energy Management Inc., the same company that is seeking to build the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod. It says the new plant could start within 10 minutes if demand peaks, or if a big nuclear generator or major transmission line suddenly fails. This would reduce the need to rely in emergencies on reserve units in Everett and Salem that lack such quick-start capability and have to be kept running at a low level, often sending pollutants over Chelsea. An advantage of the Chelsea Creek site is easy marine access for oil deliveries.
But the long-term prospects for the Everett and Salem units are unclear, especially with major new transmission lines coming into service, and there is no guarantee that system operators would use the units in Everett, Salem, and Chelsea in a way that minimizes pollution in Chelsea. Energy Management's goal of providing the region with a quick-start plant that burns a relatively clean fuel (even cleaner natural gas is not proposed because of possible winter shortages) and can cut back on use of Everett's and Salem's more polluting facilities is laudable. But Chelsea and its children would be better protected if the developer were told to find a different site.
