Is the state really protecting wild lands?

I might be happy to read that more land in the State of Massachusetts will be put into conservation. (See Recorder article of June 3.) However, Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas pipeline company seems to favor putting fracked gas pipelines through designated conservation land, like our Otis State Forest, supposedly protected by Article 97 of our state Constitution.

Pipeline companies will do this because it is convenient. The Baker Administration has done nothing to uphold these Article 97 protections. So, I am hardly reassured by this news of new state conservation grants. It seems like greenwashing by Baker-Polito to me and an opportunity for more fossil fuel incursion through our state. This does not “address climate change,” as Beaton suggests.

Tamsen Merrill

Ashfield