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Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 23.02 – 1/28/21

A CHARLIE HORSE FROM BAKER DOWN IN WEYMOUTH

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted December 3, 2019 Filed Under: COLUMNS, Dear Reader, News, NEWS+OPINIONS

 

Dear Reader,

 

I’m an argumentative person. As I see things, it’s often better to fight it out ahead of time, since accountability is hard to come by after shit hits the fan. Anybody who deals with children knows all about this; if you tell a kid a thousand times to stay away from a glass of water, and they go ahead and knock it over anyway, there’s very little you can do about it at that point other than get totally pissed and say, What the fuck, I fucking told you so. And then you’re a monster, even though they predictably fucked up.

 

And that’s why I am going to make it more of a point in the new year to lambaste Mass Gov. Charlie Baker as much as possible, and to designate more space in these pages for tearing him down. Baker’s often in the background—if we’re covering the criminal culture within the Mass State Police, for example, he may not be directly in the story, but he still has the most power in the commonwealth and can spur change, but instead, like countless other cowards who sat behind the big desk before him, does nothing.

 

The situation is similar on the South Shore, where Baker’s mix of neglect and inaction around a natural gas compressor station speaks to the depravity of money-and-industry shills like our governor. From Joe DiFazio at the Patriot Ledger:

 

After years of legal fights, protests and political lobbying, construction on a controversial natural gas compressor station in Weymouth could begin as early as Tuesday [Dec 3].

 

The proposed 7,700-horsepower station has been met by vociferous protest from residents and lawmakers, but multinational energy transportation company Enbridge and its subsidiary Algonquin appear ready to start building after a last go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 

 

Alice Arena, a Weymouth resident who heads the group Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station, said it was typical for the federal government and a large company to make this kind of announcement around the holidays, calling the development “not completely unexpected.” “Our response is one of great disappointment,” said Arena. 

 

Yeah, mine too. As Arena’s group points out, “The compressor station would pose a serious threat to the local community,” and “potential negative effects include, but are not limited to, excessive noise [and] exposure to toxic pollutants.”

 

The governor’s home value won’t be impacted, and if there’s some kind of awful disaster as a result of the station being built in Weymouth, he and his family probably won’t suffer as a result. So, like I said, it’s time to call him out for being a shameless business-assist monkey right now, because later’s always too damn late.

 

CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CHRIS FARAONE

A Queens, NY native who came to New England in 2004 to earn his MA in journalism at Boston University, Chris Faraone is the editor and co-publisher of DigBoston and a co-founder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. He has published several books including 99 Nights with the 99 Percent, and has written liner notes for hip-hop gods including Cypress Hill, Pete Rock, Nas, and various members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

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Filed Under: COLUMNS, Dear Reader, News, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: #CoveringClimateNow, Alternatives for Community and Environment, Bill McKibben, Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, climate crisis, climate crisis issue, Columbia Journalism Review, compressor station, Covering Climate Now, Democracy Denied, energy, Environment, environmental reporting, Falter, Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station, fracking, FRRACS, gas, global warming, Green New Deal, Jason Pramas, Koch brothers, Logan Airport, Lyft, Mass Department of Public Utilities, natural gas, pollution, Red-Green Revolution, Special Climate Crisis Issue, spectra, The Nation, Uber, Victor Wallis, Weymouth, Weymouth Compressor Station

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DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]