Mass. Nurses: No fracking
Photo Courtesy MNA
Massachusetts Nurses Association members are pictured at the National Registered Nurses Day of Action in 2009. The nurses union organization voted last week to oppose a natural gas project in Weymouth because it would employ fracked gas.
The Kinder Morgan pipeline project once proposed to run through North Central Massachusetts brought out anti-fracking activists in droves. Now, nurses are joining the fight against fracking elsewhere in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association Board of Directors voted unanimously on Dec. 17 to oppose the construction of a natural gas pipeline and compressor station in and around Weymouth, saying the proposal by Houston, Texas-based Spectra Energy will pollute air and water, and will cause loud noises and smells. The nurses oppose the use of fracked gas, which would be transported through an additional pipeline in Weymouth and Braintree. The Weymouth compressor station would be adjacent to neighborhoods in Quincy and Braintree as well.
MNA spokesman David Schildmeier said the union group opposed a project in West Roxbury as well as in Weymouth, because members living in both communities brought the projects up as points of concern. The proposed Kinder Morgan project, which will no longer touch North Central Massachusetts, didn’t face formal opposition from the nurses, but Schildmeier said the organization opposes fracking “on a global level.”
“We have to change our reliance on fossil fuels and from a nursing healthcare prospective, it’s a public health issue,” Schildmeier said this week.
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