To Build a Pipeline, Or Not: N.E. Governors' Push for More Gas Meets Opposition

A ship docks at Everett twice a month, next to a scrap metal yard upstream from Boston Harbor.  It pumps millions of gallons of supercooled liquid natural gas into two large white holding tanks.

From there, the terminal makes the liquid into a gas, which is pushed into a nearby power plant, and also into metro Boston's distribution lines and New England's interstate pipeline system.  The facility has extra capacity, though, to send out far more fuel through the region's constrained natural gas pipeline system.

And that raises a question that the Everett terminal's operators, and others in the region, are asking:  is the plan from New England's six governors to build a pipeline that would tap into the cheap natural gas in states to the west really needed?

Critics say the risk in moving forward with an ambitious, new pipeline before exhausting all other options is high.

To Build a Pipeline, Or Not:  N.E. Governors' Push for More Gas Meets Opposition