Phillips, who has been a fierce critic of the compressor station for years, began his hunger strike on Jan. 29 with three demands: That the contractor building the compressor station do more to decontaminate trucks leaving the site with potentially toxic dirt; That the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) test old burner bricks on the property for asbestos; and that the state install a permanent air monitor near the site.
Of the three, only one has been met, Phillips said; DEP announced last month that it had put a temporary air monitor in place and was planning to install a permanent one in the future.
Again, amazingly after all that, we still need pressure on MassDEP to simply do its job: make sure that toxic dirt is washed off the trucks, and test the bricks for asbestos. I will never get over the idea that a man had to starve himself to get our Commonwealth to even notice.
Fortunately, there’s an opportunity to talk to the Governor personally: He’ll be on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio tomorrow Thursday 2/13 11am, with Margery Eagan and Jim Braude, who — whenever I’ve heard them — tend to give him deferential, chummy treatment. The number is 877-301-8970. Call up and ask:
- When will MassDEP test the bricks?
- Why aren’t the trucks decontaminated before they leave the site?
- How does the Weymouth compressor, creating the equivalent of 1.1 million cars worth of pollution, fit in with Governor Baker’s vaunted climate policy?
- Why did it take a dude starving himself; and endless, mailbox-jamming phone calls from constituents, to get the Governor’s and MassDEP’s attention? Is this the kind of constituent service we can expect from your administration?
- Will there be a statement from MassDEP or Energy and Environment Secretary Theoharides regarding the hunger strike and Phillips’s ongoing demands?
- Do you have nothing to say to your constituents, Governor, given how brutal they are to you?
I went to this very waiting room for 211 lunchbreaks re: Weymouth compressor. He never met with me either. When I finally got him in an elevator, he said: you have been so brutal to me, I have nothing to say to you”#SitWithAndreahttps://t.co/2MyuaQ3KQe#NoWeymouthCompressor https://t.co/Qi3QVmJmGw
— 🦉grumpygrumpyowl (@grumpygrumpyowl) December 6, 2019
(Ok, that last one is a rhetorical question.)