BOSTON — Paddling a canoe across Massachusetts with a message for the state's most prized new corporate arrival to clean up the Housatonic River, an environmentalist on Wednesday said he had seen improvements to the Bay State's waterways over the past three decades.
Wearing a backwards camouflage cap and a life preserver on the Charles River Esplanade, Denny Alsop read talking points he had scrawled on his wooden paddle about the surprise he felt learning that General Electric was moving its headquarters to Boston while so much cleanup work remains undone around the company's old manufacturing facilities in Pittsfield.
As the Legislature prepares to consider major energy policy legislation later this spring, Senate President Stanley Rosenberg called the news that Kinder Morgan would suspend work and spending on its controversial gas pipeline project "a game changer" that would allow for a broader debate about the state's energy mix.
Kinder Morgan announced Wednesday that it would halt its Northeast Energy Direct natural gas pipeline project due to inadequate commitments from prospective customers. The planned pipeline, if green-lit by the federal government, would have run from New York through parts of western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire to Dracut, Mass.
