Chelsea is an urban industrial city across the harbor from Boston. It is home to 40,000 residents, and boasts the highest rate of respiratory illnesses, strokes, and cardiovascular disease in the state. It is in the highest category for expected lifetime cancer cases from diesel pollution, with a diesel exhaust level five times the U.S. average.
Chelsea hosts jet fuel storage facilities for Logan International Airport, 80 percent of the home heating oil used in the region, and all the road salt used in eastern Massachusetts. Chelsea also has heavy diesel trucking corridors that cut through and surround the city.
Chelsea's New England Produce Center is the second largest produce market in the country, and gets 37,000 refrigerated truck deliveries from across the country annually. With local produce distribution traffic, this adds up to about 2,000-3,000 delivery trucks in and out of the market daily. For extra cold storage space, many companies use stationary trucks that are no longer roadworthy. Using high sulfur diesel, they idle around the clock, producing thousands of tons of hazardous pollutants.
The Chelsea Collaborative, under the guidance of its association executive director RoseAnn Bongiovanni, was awarded $1.9 million in Recovery Act Funding to reduce diesel emissions. Forming a first time alliance with the Produce Center, the partners will upgrade the truck dock electrification system at the market and repower 79 stationary cold storage trailers with electric engines.
"The members of the New England Produce center are excited about enhancing the air quality by reducing harmful emissions caused by diesel engines. This project allows us to be a better neighbor and member of the community" said Brian Eddy, Sr., general manager of The New England Produce Center. "Our objectives from the start of this project were to obtain energy savings, environmental sustainability, and demonstrate community leadership. We take great pride in our participation and view the project as a major success. The Chelsea Collaborative and its representatives have played an integral part in bringing all of us a better community in which to live and work."
Catherine Maas, a member of the Chelsea Board of Health and the lead diesel activist for The Chelsea Collaborative, presented the Collaborative's unique community-market environmental partnership at the EPA's 2010 Environmental Justice Conference in New Orleans this past January.
Adapted with permission from a posting at "What Would Rachel Say?"