Green Newton

Green Newton, along with Mothers Out Front Newton and 350 Mass Newton Node, want you to know that our dear friend, Boston University professor and tireless climate activist, Nathan Phillips, began a hunger strike on Wednesday, January 29 to call attention to serious public health and safety violations occurring at the site of the ill-conceived Weymouth Compressor Station.  His personal statement describes how dump trucks loaded with arsenic- and suspected asbestos-laden coal ash have been leaving the site in violation of agreed-upon decontamination procedures, threatening the health of residents of the Fore River Basin and along routes across the Commonwealth and beyond.

Please call Governor Baker’s office (617-725-4005) and DEP Commissioner Suuberg’s office (617-292-5500) to urge them to meet the three demands that will allow the ongoing hunger strike of Nathan Phillips to cease.

The demands are:

1. All dump trucks leaving the site abide by the decontamination measures outlined on page 27 of the Release Abatement Measures plan of November 25, 2019, which require a decontamination pad/station and other measures to clean tires and exterior vehicle surfaces of site residue.

2. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection commences comprehensive testing for asbestos in furnace bricks and in the coal ash matrix, across and throughout the vertical profile of the North Parcel.

3. The Baker administration commits to a date certain, no later than two weeks from January 29, for the installation and operation of an air quality monitor as Governor Baker pledged action on ‘within a couple of days’ on Radio Boston on January 23, 2020.

fyi: Suuberg’s extension for messages: #71098

On TWITTER use hashtag #Hunger4JusticeMA

And tag these twitter accounts:

Mothers Out Front:         @MothersOutFront

Nathan Phillips:             @nathanpboston

Mass Department of Environmental Protection:  @MassDEP

Governor Baker:             @MassGovernor

FRRACS:                      @FRRACS_MA

Read more about the hunger strike and Nathan Phillip’s goals in this boston.com article from February 3.