THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT put an end to a decade-long fight over an electric substation in East Boston, ruling unanimously that a state board did not exceed its authority in granting approval for the project and limiting the reach of a state law requiring agencies to consider the environmental burden of such facilities.
The Conservation Law Foundation and the Chelsea-based advocacy group GreenRoots had argued that the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the East Boston substation location – across the street from a school — without adequately considering “the equitable distribution of energy and environmental benefits and environmental burdens.”
They noted East Boston is already heavily burdened with two roadway tunnels, Logan International Airport, jet fuel storage facilities, and scattered industrial plants.
The siting board said it did take into account environmental burdens and energy benefits, and concluded the benefits of having reliable electricity outweighed the burden of the substation.
“It is true, as the petitioners point out, that the Legislature did not define the phrase ‘energy benefits,’ but the lack of a definition does not preclude a conclusion that the plain, unambiguous meaning of ‘energy benefits’ includes energy reliability,” said Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian in her opinion, which was released on Wednesday.
At the court’s hearing on the case back in May, Wolohojian suggested the law’s mandate to consider the environmental burden on environmental justice communities is not absolute. “It’s a mandate to consider,” she said. “It’s not a mandate that overrides all other considerations.”
The court also held that the Energy Facilities Siting Board properly stepped into the debate about where to site the substation after two Boston agencies took no action on a request by Eversource for permits to build the facility. The SJC noted the two city agencies – the Public Improvement Commission and the Parks and Recreation Department — created “a stalemate by each refusing to act until the other had issued its approval.”
The 10-year push and pull over the electricity substation illustrates why the Healey administration is pushing hard for a new state siting and permitting law that would speed such decisions up. The SJC, in its opinion, noted the cost of the East Boston substation had risen from $66 million when the Energy Facilities and Siting Board approved it for the second time in November 2022 to $103 million today, an increase of 56 percent.