New Bedford, As the Legislature entered the home stretch of the 1996 session, local lawmakers made a final push to win state aid to remove a toxic power plant. The House in 1996 passed a plan that contains $300,000 to study the possibility of converting the toxic abandoned New Bedford power plant.

Most private or nonprofit groups are unable to build any project on the site of Commonwealth Electric’s closed Cannon Street power station. The cost of the toxic removal project is put at above 25 million.

Massachusetts has failed to secure EPA Brownfields Redevelopment Funds for removal of the Cannon Street Power Station. The US EPA’s New England Regional office is also an integral part of the Brownfield Support Team. The publicly owned 29 acre power station has been let off the hook or has slipped through the cracks as one of the most contaminated sites in the country. The cleanup documents for the power plant are said to weigh around twenty pounds. Lets get a response from our state reprersentatives !

How can we ask the public to accept new renewable energy products if the State of Massachusetts alows the old abandoned Cannon Street Power Plant in New Bedford to stay standing with every toxin known to mankind except radioactive waste? The utility needs to not just close down these plants it needs to make sure if they are closed down the plants and the toxins are taken away!

The Canon Street Power Plant in New Bedford is an example of a complete failure in public policy by Massachusetts government. In 1954 high tides closed the grossly contaminated site. The toxic plant sits there today abandoned because it’s too expensive to clean up.