When the state approved Eversource's electrical substation in East Boston, it did so with a caveat: It said the company had to do something extra to benefit the community. But, as it turns out, the community may end up helping to pay for those benefits.
It directed Eversource to negotiate a “community benefits agreement” with local groups. The idea was to come up with something that would help mitigate the negative effects of the substation, or at least compensate the community for the added burden.Debra Cave began every meeting she had with Eversource the same way: “We do not want a substation in East Boston.”
She remembers being a teenager and watching from the porch of her family’s third-floor apartment as workers destroyed Wood Island Park to make room for a new airport runway. All the trees, public amenities and memories — gone. Ever since, she and her neighbors have lived with the extra sound and pollution from airplanes, as well as the associated infrastructure and industry that’s cropped up to support Logan Airport.
Over the summer of 2021, Cave and Michael Triant, executive director of the Salesian Boys and Girls Club, met with Eversource representatives to discuss what the company would do for the community.. It included $175,000 for improvements at the park across the street from the substation; $600,000 for fixing-up the nearby Urban Wild; $400,000 for planting trees; and $250,000 for the Boys and Girls Club to use on new energy efficient appliances and HVAC system upgrades.
“It is the company's position that the CBA would be a recoverable cost down the road,” said Eversource spokesman Chris McKinnon. “However, we haven't decided if and how we would go about doing that.” Mitigation involves reducing the damage of a project or providing some sort of payment or offset, he said. "And this ameliorates nothing because we're paying for it."
It all comes down to what the Department of Public Utilities decides it will allow, said Ann Berwick, who led the department and served on the Energy Facilities Siting Board under Gov. Deval Patrick. That's when a utility lays out the receipts for everything it’s spent since its last review and proposes how it wants to recover those costs. It lumps its expenses into different categories: things it hopes to recoup from ratepayers, things it hopes to recoup with a profit and things the company itself will pay for.
But some substation opponents worry that something small — like a community benefits agreement — will get lost in the shuffle.
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