Support Take Back the Grid's campaign, Utility Relief for All, by contacting your legislators and asking that they support HD.3313, An Act Establishing an Arrearage Relief Fund, which will establish a fund to relieve all gas and electric utility debt accrued since the start of the pandemic. A toolkit with sample email and phone scripts is available here: bit.ly/UtilityRelief4All

This article from Vice is a little wonky, but it explains why the Weymouth compressor will be a stranded asset in the near future--if it isn't already.

It’s very hard to believe—and even we forgot to mention it at our meeting this past Tuesday—but it’s been six years this month that FRRACS began organizing to stop the Weymouth compressor station! If it were a different year, we would have broken bread together at the Club House in Quincy and reminded one another of how far we have come.

Wow, we're blown away by the response from our allies and supporters who have filed as intervenors on the FERC docket. Our list of thank yous may continue to grow, but we wanted to take a moment to thank folks here

Well, Fore River Campers, looks like the Easter Bunny arrived early with a present for us! Here is our new MassDEP air quality monitor! Delivered today. It should be up and running very soon.

We need to talk, Campers. Fracking is bad. Really bad. The transport and use of fracked gas is bad. Really bad. But the very worst part of this whole operation is the fracking itself.

Please read this article and click on the links if you have a moment. Our fight is more that just our "little" compressor. Our fight is a fight to save the lives of of others and to save the life of our planet.

We can't say enough about functioning government and a federal delegation that has been working with us for six long years, Campers.

Thank you for all of your letters of encouragement to Senators Warren and Markey and Congressman Lynch.

Thank you, Sens. Warren and Markey and Congressman Lynch for coming through for the residents of the Fore River Basin once again. Fingers crossed that FERC is listening!

You can read their letter below.

FRRACS would like to thank all of our members and allies who posted to the FERC docket asking FERC to grant our rehearing request. On Thursday, FERC opened the window for briefs to be filed on the docket in 45 days to address the issues shown in the announcement below. While this did not grant the rehearing, it is a step in the right direction.

FRRACS will be filing a brief and we will be pursuing our partners to file as well. Stay tuned, Campers!

Again, thank you for your participation in this--the squeaky wheel gets the grease!

FERC Establishes Paper Briefing to Examine Weymouth Compressor Station Concerns

FRRACS joined the Better Path Coalition to talk about the connections of our fight with the fight for clean energy in Pennsylvania. Better Path is a coalition of frontline and grassroots groups in PA working to create more renewable options for the state. Alice and Andrea joined the webinar on behalf of FRRACS. You can watch the video here. Thanks to the Better Path Coalition for having us!

Massachusetts Clean Action Network (MCAN) recently had Alice Arena on their podcast, The Climate Minute, to give an update on the compressor station fight. You can listen to the episode here. Many thanks to Ted and The Climate Minute team for having us!

Important Notice: Enbridge is testing their emergency generator tomorrow from 12pm-5pm. Campers be on the lookout for noise, smell and emissions impacts and feel free to let us know if you spot anything.

We didn't see it on the Town of Weymouth Facebook so we're getting the word out to folks here.

Yesterday, we received the Root Cause Failure Analysis Report on both emergency shutdowns from Senator Markey's and Congressman Lynch's offices. Thanks to our elected officials for keeping tabs on this and for making sure that the true stakeholders in all of this remain as informed as can be.

FRRACS and our allies are going over this to be sure that it is accurate and that it makes sense as an explanation of the failures that Enbridge had BEFORE going online.

A recent study from Harvard University, University of Birmingham, University of Leicester, and University College London, found that 8 million people died in 2018 from exposure to fossil fuel pollution.

Thanks to so many of you, FERC has received nearly 200 comments asking them to approve our request for a rehearing on their approval of Enbridge’s in-service certificate. If you haven’t had a chance to submit a comment, you can do so here until Feb. 18.

Let’s keep the pressure on! As a follow-up to our FERC comment action item, we are asking folks to contact Senator Markey, Senator Warren, and Representative Lynch, asking them to make the same request of FERC: approve FRRACS’s request for a rehearing. Sample talking points and contact information provided - click “Read more”.

We need to know what we are living with, and we cannot rely on the state to do their job to protect us and our health. That's the bottom line, Campers. So, we have begun to install Purple Air monitors throughout the Fore River Basin. We currently have 2 installed and plan to install 8 more in the coming weeks. These monitors measure PM 2.5 in real time. You can view a live update of our Quincy Point monitor here.

Many thanks to CARCS for getting us started, many thanks to all of those who have donated for more monitors, many thanks to those offering their homes as stations, and many thanks to our Board Member Robert Kearns for all of his work to get them installed. Many hands make light work.

You can read more about this effort in The Patriot Ledger - Fore River Basin air monitors called 'community science project' (link)

Councilor Haugh has announced that she will not seek re-election on the Weymouth Town Council. FRRACS has had the honor of working with Councilor Haugh both as a Town Councilor and as a Board member of FRRACS. Councilor Haugh will serve out her term as an at-large councilor through January of 2022.

You can read more in the Weymouth News about her decision and what she plans on doing next: Weymouth News - Weymouth councilor looks back and ahead (link)

Quick update for folks: Enbridge stated on January 22 that they would be placing their compressor station into service on January 23, after receiving temporary approval from PHMSA. Their station did not in fact turn on, and as of today, January 30, it’s still not operating. Small victory!

The station is NOT running although Enbridge argued to the 1st Circuit it would need to run on cold days like these past few ones. It is a myth. As you can see in this video, there are no heat signatures or vapors coming out of the rectangular stack. We don't need this boondoggle!

We are building a local network of purple air monitors in the Fore River Basin. We are going to have multiple monitors in the different Environmental Justice communities in East Braintree, Quincy Point and Germantown as well as the two Weymouth neighborhoods: Idelwell and North Weymouth.

You can see an interactive map of all purple air monitors including our network at www.purpleair.com/map.

Whimsical and grim, that is us! This story in Boston Hassel highlights the community’s —and the elves’— resistance to the compressor station. You can read the full story here.

Margaret asked AG Healey if she had any information about Enbridge’s announcement that they would be turning the compressor station on, despite the fact that PHMSA has not released their root cause analysis. The AG said she would be meeting with Enbridge this week and would update date us (and the public) as to what she learns. We will follow up with the AG’s office if we don’t hear anything soon. (Thank you, Margaret, for connecting with the AG again!)

You can listen to the clip on Boston Public Radio here. Click on January 28 - “BPR Full Show 1/28/21: Who You Gonna Call?”. The conversation takes place at 02:26:01 to 02:29:50.