Chelsea, Massachusetts, has lots of gas leaks, not enough thriving trees, and too many dangerously hot days. Photo: Sarah White
March 25, 2026 (Boston, MA) – A judge has recommended that a lawsuit against National Grid should move forward. The case was brought by Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), local green groups, and city residents over the company’s failure to prevent methane gas leaks that pose explosive dangers, kill trees, and cost residents and businesses money.
“These ongoing gas leaks put communities in danger, intensify extreme heat, and suffocate the trees that our neighborhoods depend on,” said Heather Govern, CLF’s vice president for clean air and water. “This court’s report and recommendation brings us one step closer to more accountability for gas companies and meaningful protections for the people most affected.”
A street survey by CLF showed National Grid pipelines leaking harmful levels of methane, which creates explosion hazards in dense neighborhoods, kills trees, and worsens climate change.
Methane levels from gas leaks were dangerously high in Chelsea and the Boston neighborhoods of Chinatown, Dorchester, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale, Roxbury, South End, and along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Back Bay – and many of these neighborhoods are already exposed to high levels of pollution and have limited access to trees and green space.
CLF found more than 200 public shade trees dead or dying near leaking gas pipelines where high levels of methane were found to be in the soil around the trees. And the loss of public shade trees in urban neighborhoods creates more dangerous heat islands and makes air pollution worse as temperatures rise this summer.
CLF’s survey also found 15 locations where leaks are serious enough to pose threats of fire and explosion and alerted National Grid to the danger spots.
The pipeline system is aging with hundreds of new explosive-level leaks popping up every quarter, sometimes in the same location where repairs were previously made, according to National Grid’s own data. The company spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to replace pipelines that continue to leak.
The magistrate judge’s recommendation now heads to the district court judge, which will decide whether to adopt the ruling or not.
The full report and recommendation can be read here.
CLF experts are available for further comment.
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