Amherst Select Board: Head of the class at Town Meeting
All Amherst Town Meeting members received an email last night from the supposedly non partisan Town Meeting Coordinating Committee begging us to show up for tonight's final meeting so the esteemed body would have a quorum and could then dispose of the last three citizen petition articles on the warrant.
The cheerleader email was directed specifically at the final Article 30, a non-binding advisory ditty opposing construction of the Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas Pipeline through our neighboring counties to the north.
Apparently not "only in Amherst"
Since the pipeline is not scheduled to ram its way across the Town Common you might be tempted to thing it's not town business. But it is.
Amherst businesses are already being hurt by the moratorium imposed by Berkshire Gas on any new hook ups in town due to supply constraints.
Last week Joe Bowman the owner/manager of Fratelli's Ristorante appeared before the Zoning Board of Appeals to secure permission to place a 1,000 gallon underground propane tank on site at 30 Boltwood Walk.
Not only an expensive capital construction project, but a more expensive routine supply cost as well.
Even the town -- a major customer of Berkshire Gas -- is being impacted as a renovation conversion project at East Street School from expensive, more environmentally harmful oil to natural gas is now in limbo because of the moratorium.
One simple rule of, gasp, capitalism that Town Meeting never seems to get is the sacred law of supply and demand. If you have high demand for housing and NIMBY/BANANAs constantly strangle the development of new housing, then the price goes up.
Or if you have a huge demand for clean, efficient, cheap energy and the pipeline is too small to satisfy that demand, then you have a moratorium ... which is bad for business.
Thus Town Meeting should vote down the obstructionist article targeting the new pipeline. IF we get a quorum.
Select Board supports anti-pipeline petition, but dropped the ball on solar
About 20 years ago when an Annual Town Meeting stretched on forever and town officials were worried about a quorum on the final night they offered free coffee, hot chocolate, cookies & milk to entice members to perform their civic duty.
Maybe the Select Board should offer up fresh fruit tonight. I'll spring for the BANANAs.
I see so many Stop The Pipeline signs, I'm wondering where do I get ahold of a Bring It On sign?
ReplyDeleteProbably any NRA rally or the Westborough Baptist Church.
ReplyDeleteOr you could just go to Santa Barbara and watch the mile-wide oil slick lap up against their shoreline.
NRA? Oh. The 2nd Amendment? Not a supporter of the Constitution I guess.
DeleteNatural gas doesn't "lap up", it wafts.
ReplyDelete"Natural gas doesn't "lap up", it wafts."
ReplyDeleteNo Larry, facts matter:
Natural Gas bubbles to the surface -- at which point it becomes a "Greenhouse Gas" with something like 20 times the effect of Carbon Dioxide. Also (like CO2) it can dissolve into water under pressure and then come bubbling out when the pressure is removed -- think the bubbles in carbonated soda or the foam when you tap a keg of beer.
About half, by volume, of the massive BP "oil spill" was actually LNG -- the oil floated to the surface while the LNG remained a mile down, still a liquid because of the pressure and cold. Florida was worried that if this massive puddle of LNG were to drift into the shallower water off the Florida shoreline, the LNG would eventually become a gas -- expanding something like 400 times in volume -- at which point it would *rapidly* shoot to the surface with the displaced water forming a tsunami after the bubble burst.
LNG is what caused the BP well to "blowout", what caused/fueled the fire, and what continued to force the oil out of the bore hole -- and made it so difficult to plug the hole.
There are numerous places in the Western North Atlantic where LNG naturally oozes out of fissures on the ocean floor -- there is a great deal of this in the area of the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" and one explanation for ships disappearing involves either lots of little bubbles reducing buoyancy, or one massive one surfacing under an unfortunate vessel. Were the latter to happen, she would simply fall into a hole in the ocean with a wall of water collapsing down on top of her -- even if she got a "MayDay" out, radio waves wouldn't travel through the wall of water surrounding her and hence she would never be seen or heard from again.
No, I do not think the Constitution is the end-all-be-all guide to Life and How to Live It. Any one who does is mistaken.
ReplyDeleteDo I support it? Well, most of it, sure. Anyone who doesn't is mistaken.
The President, for one, is sworn to uphold it. Unlike you, he cannot pick and choose the parts he likes.
DeleteCO2. Necessary for life.
ReplyDeleteLike ice in your water glass, the Arctic floats. Even if the ice were to melt completely, the level in your glass would not rise. If the Arctic ice were to melt completely, the sea level would not rise. Relax. Have a drink .
ReplyDeleteLol. True enough. "An Inconsistent Truth" is a movie we all oughtta see.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serous note, I am really uncomfortable with those large buried tanks of Propane -- Liquid Propane (LP). That is one hell of a fire load should it ever spring a leak.
ReplyDeleteSmaller tanks -- the 20lb ones used for backyard grills and the 100lb "Bottled Gas" ones that you sometimes still see around -- have to be inspected and pressure tested something like every 12 years. I don't understand why the bigger ones don't have to be as well -- steel rusts, brass corrodes, insects build nests inside pressure relief valves, etc.
And even if you don't pressure test it, if a 1000 lb tank is above ground, one so inclined can visually inspect it. One can sorta notice the big rusted area where all the metal is flaking off, and take the tank out of service before it springs a leak.
You can't do that if it is buried -- and as we learned with buried oil and gasoline tanks, they do spring leaks. (I had a real issue with the one in Mill Hollow Apts.)
All you can do is measure how much Propane comes out of the tank and make sure that, over time, matches what was pumped into it. While that will catch a long-term small leak, it will do nothing to prevent a sudden massive one.
Unlike Natural Gas, Propane is heavier than air, it drifts across the ground like a deadly fog (my training was that it often was a visible white fog). It drifts across the ground, pockets accumulating in low-lying areas, and if it finds a source of ignition before it's diluted below an explosive concentration, KABOOOM!
And as one Fire Chief testified at a Congressional Hearing on Homeland Security "It wouldn't be difficult for a terrorist to figure out that large tanks of Propane can explode" -- and unlike a pipeline which can be safely shut off, upwards of 1000 gallons of Liquid Propane remains in the middle of the fire.
This is my dispute with Enku Geylae writ large -- if we are going to worry about things, let's worry about things (and people) worth worrying about.
That's over two tons of a liquid that boils at -30 degrees when not under pressure, and which becomes a explosive, heavier-than-air gas upon boiling -- in the middle of a working fire.
While there may be some delay/difficulty in being able to find the natural gas shutoff valves, and while they may be so old/rusty/corroded that they may not work (necessitating finding those to shut off a larger area) and while (I'm told) you have to shut off both ends of a pipe (as it will backfeed), at least you can do something.
I wonder if those who so adamantly oppose the pipeline would be willing to give up their gas furnaces/stoves/water heaters and convert to electric or propane. You know, support their cause. Hell, it would free up some of the load for business/development. Win win if you ask me. All the opposed hippies can roll themselves back to the stone age (or whatever period some college smarty-pants will surely point out as more appropriate) and life will go on. Added bonus: many of the hypocrites, I mean, opponents of the pipeline, can at least enjoy the life they so badly want.
ReplyDeleteanon@2:03
ReplyDeleteyou are wrong. The ice in your drink is entirely submerged. The Arctic ice (and many other places on land) is not submerged. When it melts it does indeed add liquid water to our environment, most to our seas. I suggest you do the experiment- add enough ice to your glass of water where so that many cubes are above the water level. Mark your class just after adding the ice, then measure after all the ice has melted. Let us know your results, repeat the experiment at least 3 times and provide standard errors of the mean.
Anon 2:36 I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong. Even you will agree that ice (or a boat) will displace its weight. The seight remains the same whether the body is fully submerged or not. And. I wouldn't worry about the arctic anyway as the aunt Arctic is adding ice kind of balancing each other out eh?
DeleteEr...Weight. And Aunt Arctic was a nice lady, but of course I meant Antarctic.
DeleteLarry:
ReplyDeleteThis is what I would say at Town Meeting:
1: Humanity depends upon fire to stay warm and to cook our food. If you want to eat raw food while shivering in a snowbank, be my guest but don't think that the rest of us intend to do that.
Hence, SOMETHING is going to be burned -- and you are not stopping that. And in the case of restaurants, it will be either Propane or Methane Gas.
2: A gas pipeline is safe and it is bringing gas that otherwise would be wasted. It would either be "flared" -- burnt off in an uncontrolled (and quite dirty) fire or simply released into the atmosphere where it is a whole lot worse than CO2 ever could be.
3: Stopping us from benefiting from that gas does not stop it from going into the atmosphere -- burnt or unburnt.
4: If you don't let them build this pipleine, the other option they have is to bring in LNG, evaporate it, and put gas into their local lines that way. This is what Boston Gas does, bringing the LNG tankers into Everett.
Do you really want to have 18-wheel trucks carrying LNG on the local roads,perhaps going through downtown Amherst?
5: If they don't build the pipeline, there will be a LOT of people putting in propane tanks. Which will be filled by trucks carrying Liquid Propane -- both trucks the size of a heating oil truck and bigger 18-wheel trucks. These are the trucks with "1075" on them, do you really want more of them on the local roads -- going through downtown?
Propane is often transported by rail, and the tracks going through town aren't in the best of shape. Remember all the derailments?
Now imagine 10-20-30 propane tank cars derailing -- do you want that?
Anon 2:31 PM -- I'd be happy if they gave up their private jets. How many *tons* of Kerosene do some of those burn per hour???
ReplyDeleteSettled science. I'm old enough to remember when settled science said the earth was flat. And then, when that was found to be incorrect, settled science said the sun revolved around the earth. And they burned you as a heretic if you didn't believe. I'm sure there exist those who would like to dispose of non-believers in the new religion in a similar way. Pope Albert I is the biggest hypocrite of our time! Carbon footprint. What a joke he is.
Delete2:44: oh man are you ever so right! Didn't know there are a few publicly opposed folks who are wealthy enough to ride around in chartered jets. The fuel burn of a turbine engine is indeed up there.
ReplyDeleteJust look at Al Gore. How hypocritical can one be?
Delete"Dr. Ed said...
ReplyDeleteLarry:
This is what I would say at Town Meeting:"
You would say it if you lived here but you don't.
Am I the only one that finds it ironic that a hundred fifty people will drive their carbon-fueled vehicles to the middle school tonight?
ReplyDeleteAnd what exactly IS the carbon footprint of an average Town Meeting Session? That's a nice selection of old jalopies and fine German engineering there.
Best way to reduce this tragic oil consumption is to reduce the numbers by a charter change, either fewere members or a mayor and city council.
I am still willing to sell my carbon credits at a reduced price. Didn't have kids, so didn't produce generations of users. Plenty of carbon credits for you to purchase. Just call today! They're going fast!
DeleteHey, I'm as liberal as the next guy. Maybe more. And tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass about your carbon footprint. Nor is my hair on fire about climate change. I have more prssimg worries. Like paying my mirtgage.
DeleteAnd I also hope that typing class I'm taking pays off. Or that Apple will improve its speech recognition. Sry.
DeletePut that on next year's agenda!
ReplyDelete4:19 PM Coward:
ReplyDeleteI once was a Town Meeting member, and when I. realized how biased the moderator was -- when I realized I could have fired a flare at him and he still wouldn't have "seen" me, I stopped bothering to go.
I've noticed about 7 in 10 homes in Amherst that have Stop The Pipeline signs also have a gas meter along side the house......Amherst defines hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great post, 7:22.
ReplyDelete