The Acushnet River on the South Coast of Massachusetts is shaped like a long, narrow megaphone.

At the narrow mouthpiece end is the rather rural town of Acushnet. As the river broadens on its way to Buzzards Bay there is the densely populated industrial city of New Bedford on the west side whose shore is dotted with old factory buildings and the Port of New Bedford, while on the East shore is the more rural Fairhaven with its docks, shipyards, and marinas, and at the end there is a gated seawall to protect the harbor from storms.

Fairhaven is flat compared with New Bedford which rises from its shore in a slow graceful hill looking East with the downtown area and historic district hugging the foot of the hill by the water’s edge that harkens back to its early days.

The port of New Bedford is a working port where, along with its massive fishing fleet, large cargo ships deliver products on a regular basis.

The energy companies, Eversource and Spectra Energy, are asking the state to allow it to build two giant LNG storage tanks, and that’s drawing the ire of some local residents in Acushnet, and along the shores of the megaphone.

The tanks would be roughly 170 feet high and over 200 feet in diameter, would store up to 6.8 billion cubic feet of LNG, doubling the power company’s current total capacity throughout its tri-state service area from 4.7 to 11.5 billion cubic feet. and would be fed by a 3-mile pipeline running through parts of Freetown, another rural town on the narrow end of the Acushnet. They are also asking that customers pay the $600 million cost of construction by increasing their rates even though the LNG that would be stored would be shipped along the 4 miles of the River past New Bedford and Fairhaven out to sea and to other places.

While LNG itself isn’t explosive, it is highly flammable, and with vapors heavier than air, it can travel long distances and will flashback to an ignition source.

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If the same were to happen with an LNG tanker ship that has to travel approximately four miles from the tanks pasy the seawall to the bay, things on both shores would have it a little rough. Besides New Bedford’s densely populated North End residential district, there are three schools within miles of the site.

A local group called South Coast Neighbors United, or SCNU, wants to stop the expansion.

The group believes that consumers should not be asked to pay $6.6 million to build an unnecessary fracked gas pipeline that won’t lower electricity bills. They would prefer that the state should encourage energy efficiency measures that will lower electricity bills, things like more insulation, better windows, energy efficient appliances and light bulbs, and that, as the upgrade would produce higher profits, the utility companies should be required to invest in those upgrades if allowed.

Others, seeing how fracking has caused an unacceptable increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma, not only oppose the fracking process, but don’t want the proposed fracking fields in Pennsylvania to recreate Oklahoma’s problems in another state.

Rather than increase reliance on fossil fuel for the benefit of corporations, those opposing the tanks would like to see the state grow its renewable energy industry.

If forced to, the corporatioms will adapt.

Even if an explosion does not do as much damage as might think to my new home town, I have driven through the town of Acushnet, an as it is a nice rural town close to the city, when it is blown away, I will miss it.