Overview | Fact Sheet

What's New
On June 21, in a sparsely attended informal session, the state Senate ordered H 4500, a bill that would site a 13-story LNG facility on one of the Boston Harbor Islands, to get a rare second hearing during this legislative session. The first hearing, held on March 15 before the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures, and State Assets, drew over 400 people, including fishermen, environmentalists, park rangers, local activists; testifying against the proposal. Read the release | List of Save our Harbor Islands supporters.

How You Can Help
A bill currently filed in the Legislature would lease one of the Harbor Islands to AES Corporation to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and storage facility in the park. Urge your state representative to stand up for our Boston Harbor Islands by opposing House Bill 4500.

Brief Summary
Taxpayers in the Commonwealth have spent $4.5 billion cleaning up Boston Harbor so residents and tourists can enjoy the beauty of the harbor’s beaches and waterways. To crown this achievement, Congress established the Boston Harbor Islands State Park and National Recreation Area in 1996. Our years of investment have started to pay off, with cleaner waters, more wildlife and 307,000 visitors in 2005 alone. But now, AES Corporation, a Virginia-based energy conglomerate, is seeking control of Outer Brewster Island to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and storage facility.

Outer Brewster Island, the gateway to the park, is surrounded by some of the most popular waters in the park, with great fishing, sailing, birding, diving and boating. AES’s plan would bring tankers twelve stories high and three football fields long to Outer Brewster, displacing wildlife, disrupting ecosystems and industrializing our public park. The facility would also require a security zone restricting public access to the surrounding harbor islands and waterways.

A decade after the park’s creation, with billions of dollars invested in the Harbor clean-up effort, why would we allow AES to devastate the park, ruin the Harbor view, interfere with the public recreational enjoyment and destroy valuable fishing grounds? We must make sure our elected officials stand up and save our harbor islands. We must not destroy what we have worked so hard to protect and preserve. More.

Testimony
Statement of Jen Baker, Environmental Policy Associate, in opposition to HB 4500 3/8/06