Congratulations to The Concord Bridge for its excellent July 19 story on Massachusetts climate bill provisions that would update Massport’s 1956 charter to reflect current Massachusetts climate policies and goals.
In the story, a Massport spokeswoman states that “our team is currently implementing policies and capital investments to achieve ambitious net zero goals we announced two years ago.” It should be noted that, astoundingly, Massport’s net zero claims pertain only to emissions from ground infrastructure at their airports — and pointedly exclude emissions from aircraft, which overshadow them.
This is the same misleading assertion that pervaded their Draft Environmental Impact Review (DEIR) to MEPA to minimize the environmental impacts of the proposed private jet hangar expansion at Hanscom for up to 79 additional private jets.
Rep. Simon Cataldo filed a powerful public comment, co-signed by Reps. Ciccolo, Gentile, Gordon, and Peisch, stating: “Each additional private jet could be responsible for up to 12,878,160 kg of CO2e or 14,195 tons annually. … The solar arrays as proposed [by the developers] would offset 2,800 tons of GHG emissions annually, which amounts to less than 20 percent of the total GHG emissions produced by an average jet housed at Hanscom… solar installations [by the Town of Concord and private property owners] offset just 4,400 tons of CO2e per year,” which means that “a single private jet at Hanscom in an average year completely cancels these [Concord] efforts three times over.”
The developers’ DEIR was rejected by EEA Secretary Tepper, on June 24 who instructed them to re-do it. Over 1,500 public comments were submitted on the DEIR, nearly all opposed, along with more than 13,000 signatures in opposition to the private jet hangar expansion plans. You can help keep up the pressure to stop this harmful project by signing two petitions, one state-level and the other federal-level, at Stop Private Jet Expansion, spje.org.
Janet Rothrock
Annursnac Hill Road