We must act to stop Eversource substation being built by Kennedy-Longfellow School
Residents in East Cambridge and the Linden Park neighborhood in Wellington-Harrington were shocked to learn this year that Eversource intended to build a high voltage electrical substation on Fulkerson Street across from the Kennedy-Longfellow elementary school (where 58 percent of the students are from low-income families), near a park and two neighborhoods.
A substation, among other things, transforms high voltage electricity from power generators to low voltage electricity that is transmitted to homes, businesses and other users. This station – a potential monster of a structure – is entirely inappropriate. Eversource must find an alternative solution.
The substation and its location
Before Eversource bought the property in early 2017, a developer proposed building housing on the site. Curiously, the developer continued to seek permits for the housing well after entering into an Eversource purchase and sale agreement.
Based on a review of public filings and statements made at City Council hearings, Eversource claims it has known about the need for a station since at least 2013. So why it waited until 2019 to disclose this station publicly is a mystery.
Environmental justice issue
In the past 10 years, the city has permitted millions of square feet of extra density, principally to commercial buildings and lab space. Commercial real estate developers and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took full advantage of the bonanza and have reaped billions in profits and increased property values. Eversource claims the primary reason for its proposed station is to serve 100 megawatts of expected new demand from this developments – a far cry from the net-zero goals championed by the city.
Like many others, we support reasonable development in Kendall Square and recognize the benefit to our neighborhoods. But that development has come with a hidden cost, as the buildings now need a mega electrical substation to power them. As one city councillor put it at a hearing, it is “immoral” to let the commercial developers and MIT get the benefit while the nearby residents and children of Kennedy-Longfellow bear the costs. It’s just wrong.
Health and safety concerns
Electric stations emit electromagnetic radiation. While Eversource insists that there are no adverse health effects from this radiation, the science is in dispute, and we are aware of no study testing the long-term effects on children from prolonged exposure (though “children are regarded as being more vulnerable to the effects of environmental exposures, including electromagnetic fields,” according to Canada’s National Collaborating Centres for Public Health).
What is undisputed is that substations sometimes cause explosions, and when there is an explosion, it can be significant. A fire at a New York City substation in December 2018 caused this “electrical arc flash”:
Similar events occurred in 2011 in Fort Worth, Texas, and again in New York City in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy.
Towering over homes, students
Eversource has declined to disclose the height of its proposed substation. It has said that other stations in urban areas range between 80 to 100 feet – but that this station could be twice as big. (Notably, no other stations mentioned is in a residential neighborhood next to a school). These comments and information from other sources indicate that this station could be 150 feet tall:
We must act now
The substation project is at a critical moment. In response to opposition from residents, the City Manager’s Office and the City Council, Eversource has agreed to consider – but not commit to – alternate sites. It has self-imposed a deadline of this fall to find a new location or it will forge ahead with the station on Fulkerson Street. We must work together now if we are to avoid this calamity.
Until Eversource finds a suitable alternative, we will never give up this fight – for our neighbors, our children and our city. We hope you will stand with us.
East Cambridge Planning Team and Linden Park Residents Association
I couldn’t think of a more representative “not in my back yard” example than this. If you want to have a city, you need infrastructure to support that city.
It’s called City Living…if you don’t like it you can always move to a leafy suburb that doesn’t need 100megawatt substations built…There are 0 proposals in the Letter for where to build it…No one wants it but it’s necessary. It will be located in Cambridge and most likely in or very close to Kendall where the demand is. It’s a done deal get ready for it.
Well, whoever you are. I’m glad you’d instead think that protecting our children at the elementary Kennedy Longfellow school is less important than infrastructure. Especially knowing the substation is only there to serve Kendall square. Kendall square commercial real estate will double the electricity use of the entire City of Cambridge, but that’s nothing, climate change is fake news right. Why don’t we put the station in the commercial development area, Kendall Square? Is it because commercial developers are NIMBYs. Or is the NIMBY term only apply to citizens, or is it because commercial real estate developers don’t have backyards. Commercial developers are NIMBYs. According to you, we should make sure we keep on destroying the future of our children. A thought I’m sure we all much appreciated. As Greta Thunberg stated so clearly: “If our world leaders fail us, my generation will never forgive them.”
fyi you might want to redirect where you are assigning nimby blame and look at the body that approved all of the commercial development yrs ago without any plan for infrastructure…
would it have been that difficult to add into one of the larger projects a substation in Kendall? did you think the developer was going to do that on its own? no way – the cc should have had a plan which now from what we are all seeing there obviously wasn’t one.
Not even half of the new buildings are occupied:
– Traffic is so bad you don’t want to leave your place at 7am or 5pm because its a parking lot.
– Difficult to take the Kendall T because it’s literally been declared a “State of Emergency”. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2019/07/09/after-declaring-transit-state-of-emergency-kendall-leaders-list-the-solutions-they-seek/
– Can’t bike because of limited / no protected lanes. Riders being doored, hit on a regular basis.
Good luck when they are filled with thousands of more employees…It’s sad and def feel for you and the kids but it’s pretty obvious that’s not the focus of the city. On the bright side of things, our property taxes are half as much as belmont arlington etc.
The proposed location is adjacent to Kendall Square and there’s a clear path forward since the property is owned by Eversource. Do you have a proposed alternative location that has a realistic path to development? I’m open to an alternate proposal, not just grandstanding to shut down the project. I don’t love electric substations any more than I like seeing sewer drains and recycling centers. However, these are essential if we want an urban city.
Of course climate change is severe and real. However, the issue is only tangentially related to this project. There’s a risk of electrocution if people enter the facility but claiming electromagnetic risks to children is stoking fear without basis in science. The properties, benefits, and risks of electricity are well understood at this point.
It seems self-evident that a 100+ foot substation next to a school, park, and two neighborhoods isn’t a great idea. Especially when that land was supposed to be housing or, at one time, a park.
It shouldn’t be residents’ responsibility to find an alternate location, though there are several better alternatives, including other Eversource-owned land, and two surface lots near the MIT power station. These sites are closer to the commercial demand and away from schools and residences.
As for the claim that the letter is “stoking fear without basis in science,” the letter cites and quotes from a 2017 article on the health effects of substations. You’re welcome to cite your own study or disagree with the article. But there’s certainly a basis for what the letter says.
As a neighbor near the station, yes, I don’t want the station near my house or where my daughter might one day go to school. It seems reasonable to insist that the substation be put in the commercial area of Kendall Square, since that is what is driving the need for it.
But there should also be a larger conversation about whether we need the substation at all. For a city with a net-zero action plan, why are we increasing electricity demand by over 100 MW in just one part of the city and in the next few years alone? As much as I don’t want the station at the currently proposed site, I’d rather not see it built anywhere else either.
and I guess we can go back to riding horses and shoveling coal…when your house/neighborhood was built many many years ago there were infrastructure demands – large ones like building coal-fired power plants to have so-called modern-day conveniences such as heat/ac, lights and appliances. Coal trucks used to drop coal off for people to shovel into their furnaces before that.
if the residents and city back in the day didn’t allow growth we would still be lighting lanterns and riding horses. If that lifestyle suits you great but you are in the wrong place…
as for a larger conversation, I suggest the “East Cambridge Planning Team and Linden Park Residents Association” get more involved with the city council. But the horse left the barn a long time ago on that. Look at Alewife – Kendall sq – Union Sq in Somerville it’s done not the construction yet we have yrs to deal with all of that but the zoning is done.
Big money invested all around here 2009 2010 2011 and it was easy pickings. It was right after the recession and cities we clamoring for new investments broadening the tax base…
Don’t disagree with you in terms of where it should be but its too little too late. Best of luck!
There’s a difference between, “I don’t like that because it’s ugly,” and “I don’t think it’s appropriate because of the health risks to the people who are already there.” It’s one thing if you move into an existing situation, but this is putting possible health hazards next to a public school.
From the Abstract in the 2015 European Commission (might they be less beholden to Big Energy than the US?) Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks Report on Potential health effects of exposure of electromagnetic fields (EMF):
“The new epidemiological studies are consistent with earlier findings of an increased risk of childhood leukaemia with estimated daily average exposures above 0.3 to 0.4 uT [microTesla].”
Studies they reference indicate that because the electromagnetic field strength decreases rapidly as you move away from the source, electric fields aren’t much of an issue, but magnetic fields can be. One study found significant effects living with 50 meters (about 150 feet) of the source, but others that looked at people living at somewhat farther distances didn’t see an effect. Children are more susceptible. More studies need to be done, because the scientists haven’t identified a physiological mechanism that matches what multiple epidemiological studies have found.
Magnetic fields can’t be shielded like electric fields. Elementary school kids spend most of their day in one room, and some of the rooms at Kennedy-Longfellow are within 150 feet of the proposed substation.
Also, US electric lines are at half the voltage of most of the world, which mean double the current for the same power, and magnetic field strength is determined by current, not voltage or power, so the European studies may have lower effects than we’d see in America.
One problem is the City has been relying on developers to improve the infrastructure for “free,” and we keep allowing more building without an infrastructure plan in place. Then we get to these points of overwhelming the infrastructure, and we’re told we just have to deal with it because we need to get bigger faster. Anyone who questions if we need to grow so fast gets blasted as wanting to turn the city back into farms.
Most people I know are not saying that they want to hold the city exactly as it is, which may be true of our snob-zoned suburban towns. I think most just want to see a reasonable plan, rather than just reacting to what the next developer wants to do.
reference:
https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/scenihr_o_041.pdf
Mike, you chose a limited section without the paragraph. The context is that there’s no identified mechanism to link the correlation identified in a epidemiological study. The inability to administer a randomly controlled experiment is also limits the inference power.
“””
The new epidemiological studies are consistent with earlier findings of an increased risk of childhood leukaemia with estimated daily average exposures above 0.3 to 0.4 μT. As stated in the previous Opinions, no mechanisms have been identified and no support is existing from experimental studies that could explain these findings, which, together with shortcomings of the epidemiological studies prevent a causal interpretation.
“””
We fundamentally disagree about the degree of development for Cambridge. I want to see Cambridge as a beacon for biotech and technology innovation, and that requires substantial building of commercial space and residential housing to live within a reasonable distance to work.
taguscove: I left out the second sentence because it required explanation which I provided in the subsequent paragraph explaining some of the details in pages 155-159 of the report. I wrote:
“More studies need to be done, because the scientists haven’t identified a physiological mechanism that matches what multiple epidemiological studies have found.”
I will attach the full conclusion of the detailed portion of the report below for people to read. But just because we only see correlation and can’t prove causation at this time doesn’t mean that a causal relation doesn’t exist.
That is how science works. We observe something. We conduct some studies to see if there might be a relationship. If so, we try to figure out why. Epidemiological studies are scientific attempts to prove or disprove the correlation of the observation. Multiple studies have come up with a correlation, but it could very well be an indirect one. However, just because we haven’t found the physiological explanations for things we observe doesn’t mean we should ignore caution until conclusive proof is found. Asbestos, smoking, PCBs, …
I feel that many of our issues are regional, and that the region can be a beacon for biotech. Cambridge doesn’t have to do everything within its limited city boundaries, and probably can’t without help. The expanding biotech industry in the inner core of metro-Boston is creating a lot of high paying jobs that people can’t get to in a reasonable amount of time, and there currently aren’t other areas to live car-free. That is driving up the demand to live in the city, and the highly paid workers are buying up housing faster than we can produce it, which is driving up housing costs.
The housing we are creating in our low-lying coastal city is putting many more people at risk to the impacts of our changing climate. We could get the benefits of truly sustainable development more easily in planned areas in nearish suburbs, say Woburn and Waltham, which have transit connections and are not opposed to development. There’s only so much to work with in the 4th density city* in the country. Amtrak takes 21 minutes to go from Woburn station (which has two commuter rail lines) to North Station; about the same time it takes to go from Alewife to Park St. on the Red Line.
Not all suburbs have snob zoning, and suburban areas don’t have to continue developing as sprawl. Within a 15 min walk to Woburn station, you can also be within 15 min of Market Basket, Target with CVS, Woburn Mall, Lowe’s, Petco and Pet Smart. We should be leaders demanding that other cities step up and deliver sustainable, walkable, living/working/retail/entertainment areas. Currently there aren’t alternatives, but I don’t think trying to do it all alone is the right solution, either.
*(4th densest city of reasonable size, over 100,000 population)
from the report, verbatim and complete, page 158-159:
Conclusions on epidemiological studies
The previous assessment of the 2009 SCENIHR Opinion on a possible association between long-term exposure to ELF magnetic fields and an increased risk of childhood leukaemia remains valid. A positive association has been observed in multiple studies in different settings at different points in time. Little progress has been made in explaining the finding, neither in terms of a plausible mechanism for a causal relationship with magnetic field nor in identifying alternative explanations.
Correlation without a plausible mechanism of action for causation is far below the typical threshold of evidence to take policy actions. When the evidence is there, then we can take a different action. Until then, electric substations are fine within cities. I’m sure you could find a correlation between wind turbines and heart disease if you p-value hacked enough.
Thankfully we don’t base policy on these spurious correlations with no explanatory mechanism.
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
@taguscove: sure, past history has put a high threshold before policy action, but many would argue that’s not a good thing, as I’ll discuss. How many lives would have been saved if policy was enacted sooner on, to repeat some previous examples, smoking, asbestos, PCBs, …
Any parent fundamentally understands the “precautionary principle,” which basically says if there is reason to suspect danger, don’t actively put your kids in potential harm’s way.
I don’t know how much scientific medical/health research research you have, but I’ve been reading and writing such journal articles for over three decades. (Coincidentally, my first peer-reviewed publication on my research was on the effects of applied electric fields on brain activity [1].)
The 2015 review I referenced by the European Community SCENIHR was not some spurious study. It was an update to the 2009 review of all available literature on the health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF). Of all the reported potential effects of electric and/or magnetic fields, the report dismissed most, but cited only one lasting effect that was of concern: childhood leukemia from low daily exposure to magnetic fields. [2] The scientific committee looked not only at individual studies, but studies that combined (“pooled”) the data from from multiple previous studies and _concluded_: “A positive association has been observed in multiple studies in different settings at different points in time.”
The scientific committee had one conclusion of particular concern, childhood (not adult) cancer from magnetic fields, and your conclusion is that because we don’t know why multiple studies indicate that result, we should create a generator of such fields across the street from an elementary school until we can determine the mechanism. Wow!
Note that while I and others have indicated that this situation indicates poor planning overall which should be addressed, the prime concern, now, is to at least put the substation farther away than across the street from the school and playground. (It would probably be good to have several smaller substations to reduce the maximal field strength by distributing the current flow in any area.)
As you noted, epidemiological studies have many potential confounding factors so when multiple epidemiological studies do show a correlation, it is noteworthy.
There is a good, fairly easy to read article about the Precautionary Principle in relation to environmental health policy published in Environmental Health Perspectives, one of the most highly regarded publications in its field (five-year impact factor of 9.99!) [3] published by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. From the abstract:
“The precautionary principle, proposed as a new guideline in environmental decision making, has four central components: taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty; shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity; exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions; and increasing public participation in decision making. In this paper we examine the implications of the precautionary principle for environmental scientists, whose work often involves studying highly complex, poorly understood systems, while at the same time facing conflicting pressures from those who seek to balance economic growth and environmental protection.”
In the conclusions (which has a nice summary in bullet form):
“4. […T]here is usually a large gray area in which science alone cannot (and should not) be used to decide policy.
“5. In these gray areas, status quo activities that potentially threaten human and environmental health are often allowed to continue because the norms of traditional science demand high confidence … favoring the promoters of a potentially harmful technology or activity when the science does not produce over-whelming evidence of harm.”
It ends, as will I, with: “When there is substantial scientific uncertainty about the risks and benefits of a proposed activity, policy decisions should be made in a way that errs on the side of caution with respect to the environment and the health of the public.”
Full text at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240435/pdf/ehp0109-000871.pdf
[1] Suppression of spontaneous epileptiform activity with applied currents. Nakagawa M, Durand D. Brain Res. 1991 Dec 20;567(2):241-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-8993(91)90801-2
[2] abstract of EC SCENIHR cited in prior comment
[3] The precautionary principle in environmental science. Kriebel, D, et al. Environ Health Perspect 109:871–876 (2001). https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/do/10.5555/5214340d-2f40-43c1-bfe8-2ac5804c7229/full/
The benefits of the electric substation are abundantly clear to me. The negative health effects from electromagnetic radiation due to operation have not been convincingly confirmed. With this uncertainty, the net decision is to move ahead. Adopting what you describe as a precautionary principle likely sets the decision threshold too low, leading to too many false positives and rejection of innovative technologies or improvements.
Smoking and asbestos are true positive examples, but there’s plenty of other unfounded correlations such as cell phones and brain cancer or fluoridated water. Both of the latter are plausible; what threshold would you set? Would you ban fluoridating water or cell phone usage on account of the uncertainty when the benefits are abundantly clear?
No, I see this health argument as an end run to stifle development within Cambridge and restrict progress.
Just a fyi re electric substations…one more is already planned with another in the works located somewhere in Cambridge…yes it would have made the most sense to have the substation put into the original zoning around the new properties but the city officials at the time didn’t cover that… is that pathetic? most would think so.
But thankfully eversource acquired this property or else the new tenants would not have electricity…
the continued economic expansion in Cambridge is driving the need for a lot more electric & gas citywide. of course, if you lived in detroit, cleveland or most any other US city you wouldn’t need new gas terminals or electric substations. one’s trash is another’s…
Did you hear the earth is warming up, and it might not bode well for us? Did you hear about the climate strike? Oh that’s right unbridle, unplanned growth, i.e., we don’t even have the electricity for density we permit, is the way forward. Climate change is a hoax. Us permitting insane density without knowing how to power it that is totally normal. Why would anyone think that planning is necessary. Suffice to look at the way our new tech economy, do your think and we’ll deal with consequence later. And by the way no worry, no one will be held accountable, so don’t worry, be happy. Greed will get us out of the hole.