Massachusetts House and Senate lawmakers continue to negotiate the details of major energy legislation. The final bill could require utility companies to repair more gas leaks. This issue hits close to home for our commentator, Michele Wick.
Four years ago, we stripped our nineteenth century Greek revival home to the bone and stuffed it with insulation. Solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump were installed to keep us comfortable during every New England season. When the transformation was done, we had the gas line leading to our house removed, so imagine my surprise when I learned that methane was seeping from the street in front of my driveway.
IT was one of 91 leaks scattered across Northampton’s brittle cast iron and bare steel pipes. There are more than 20,000 methane leaks across the state of Massachusetts. That’s billions of cubic feet of fugitive methane. And its the gas customers who pay for that. Nearly $40 million a year.
The thought of natural gas going rogue is scary, so leaks are rated. Grade one leaks, deemed potentially explosive, pose an imminent threat to life, limb, and property and are scheduled for immediate repair. Grade threes are deemed “non-hazardous” and require no particular plan to fix them. Boston’s oldest Grade 3 leak, located near Fenway Park, turned 30 years old in 2015.
However, one person’s notion of safe is another person’s notion of reckless. Over the course of twenty years, methane traps at least 85 times more heat than carbon dioxide. That’s a lot of dangerous heat. It’s not just the explosive leaks we need to be worried about. It’s just as important to fix leaks that are hazardous to our climate.
It’s summer. Cardinals outside my window are winging across the cloud-free sky. All I really want to to do is contemplate the blueberries sitting on my kitchen counter. Pie or buckle? Whipped or ice cream?
I would love to ignore this stealth methane in our air, but that means ignoring the growing number of victims of climate change — like some Alaskan natives, whose homes are being ruined by rising seas and melting permafrost. But there are no funds to help them move. They’re stuck.
And there are my children — and yours — who are inheriting an already overheated landscape.
So I’ll go ahead and make that blueberry buckle, but I’ll also make waves. We need to keep the methane in the ground.
Michele Wick blogs about climate change for Psychology Today and teaches at Smith College.