The Boston Women’s Fund has been a long-time supporter of the Chelsea Collaborative’s City-wide Tenants Association.  In working with the Collaborative, we were recently informed about some other important work they are doing in the community.  The Chelsea Collaborative is working on an important issue to fight the transport of dangerous ethanol through their community.  Global Oil located in Revere, MA is proposing to bring freight trains carrying ethanol to their facilities along the Chelsea River.  Ethanol is an alcohol that is mixed with gasoline for sale to gas stations and is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid that burns at extremely high temperatures.  Alcohol-resistant foam is necessary to extinguish ethanol fires along with specially trained fire-fighters.

Global Oil is proposing to bring 60-car trains; each car will carry 30,000 gallons of ethanol, into its facility 2 times per week, every week.  This will result in 187,200,000 gallons of ethanol on freight trains each year.

The route of the train is extremely dangerous as it will travel through densely populated residential neighborhoods and commercial centers.  The train is likely to travel through the following cities and towns:

Acton

Ayer

Belmont

Boston

Cambridge

Chelsea

Concord

Everett

Fitchburg

Framingham

Leominster

Lincoln

Littleton

Revere

Shirley

Somerville

Waltham

Should a fire or explosion occur, hundreds of thousands of people and dozens of businesses could be impacted.  Because the communities impacted are disproportionately low-income communities of color, this issue is also one of environmental justice.  For more information, attend the meeting at the Collaborative (318 Broadway, Chelsea) on March 20^th at 6pm or contact the Chelsea Green Space at (617)889-6080.