Rep. Lynch urges DEP Presiding Officer to revoke the air plan approval

Representative Lynch is urging the DEP Presiding Officer in our air quality appeal to deny the air quality plan approval, citing concerns related to the faulty review and testing process that the DEP conducted. We thank Rep. Lynch for using his voice and platform to make this request of the Presiding Officer.

You can read his letter below:

The Patriot Ledger - Rep. Lynch urges state to hit reset on compressor project

Excerpt: “Lynch, a longtime opponent of the project who is bringing federal regulators to Weymouth on Monday for a public listening session, wrote on Wednesday to the hearing officer overseeing an ongoing appeal case. In the letter, Lynch asks that energy giant Enbridge be required to submit an updated application since regulators at the Department of Environmental Protection admitted they did not have all the data they sought during an air-quality permitting process.

“The recent discovery that the DEP failed to provide sufficient data regarding the presence of 64 potential toxins in the area of the proposed Weymouth compressor station has destroyed the public trust in the air-quality permit process,” Lynch said in a statement on Thursday. “To restore the public trust and regain their integrity as an agency, I believe the DEP must reject the plan approval for the proposed site and require the proponent to restart the process and examine the serious threat to the public health and ensure that this time nothing is overlooked, or worse, intentionally concealed.”

Despite knowing for weeks that air-quality test results only contained scans for 40 toxins rather than the 64 they had requested, Department of Environmental Protection officials only notified parties in an appeal case challenging the permit of the updated data the day before proceedings were about to end in May. That revelation upended the process, prompting hearing officer Jane Rothchild to threaten sanctions and extend the hearing into June to allow those involved enough time to review the 700-plus pages of new test results.” (The Patriot Ledger, 2010)