HomeNewsJoint Safety Exercise to take place at Hopkinton LNG Plant

Joint Safety Exercise to take place at Hopkinton LNG Plant

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For the second time in 20 years the Hopkinton Fire & Police Departments and the Hopkinton LNG Corporation (Eversource) will conduct an in-person joint training exercise at the Hopkinton LNG facilities at 54 Wilson Street. 

Hopkinton hosts the largest Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Peak Shaving plant in New England. It supplies LNG to more than 300,000 customers in 36 towns. The plant is divided into two sections; three storage tanks on side of Wilson Street that each hold 1 billion cubic feet of LNG, and a liquefaction and vaporization facility on the other side of the street.

>> RELATED: Legacy Farms Residents at Risk from Failed Mitigation System

The training will take place on Thursday, May 4 from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and will involve firefighters from Westborough, Milford and Ashland. 

In the Select Board meeting on April 25, Chief William Miller stated that the departments have been collaborating with Eversource for more than a year on this exercise.

“This drill is built around a real world scenario,” said Miller. “We will stage resources to account for response times. Every effort has been made to ensure that we are all being tested as if we are responding to an actual event.”

“What the community will see are pre-staged emergency vehicles on Legacy Farms North and emergency teams in the area,” said Hopkinton Police Chief Joseph Bennett. “Some roads will be closed but residents will be allowed to pass through. We want to emphasize that there is no cause for alarm.”

The Select Board praised the chiefs and Eversource for their collaborative relationship. 

Board members Muriel Kramer and Mary Jo LeFreniere had questions for the chiefs about the recent HopNews article that revealed the failed vapor mitigation system at Legacy Farms. Kramer wondered aloud whose responsibility it was to inspect the system. Town Manager Norman Khumalo said that it fell to the HOA to manage. This seemed to satisfy the Select Board and they moved forward with the agenda.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Nice we will be getting a new fire chief soon joint training needs to take place at least quarterly. Training eliminates confusion saves life.

    • Hopefully they will send out the call soon for people to apply for the Fire Chief position in this town.

  2. I watched the zoom tonight. I think the select board acted shamefully. They had eversource in person and could have asked them about what they’re going to do to make the plant safer for everyone but instead gave them kudos and compliments and called them a good partner. This is the same company that doesn’t want to pay their taxes to the town! And according to the legacy farms article the equipment is old and they aren’t doing anything to replace it! Oh an nevermind the gas lamps at legacy don’t work! Is our select board so spineless they won’t hold this company to account???

  3. I think it is negligent of the town and Eversource to entrust the Legacy Farms North HOA to be responsible for protecting the safety/lives of hundreds if not thousands of people from a potential catastrophic event at the largest LNG facility in New England, which is old and not up to current safety standards. HOA boards in general are a random mix of residents elected by their neighbors and turnover can be frequent. These volunteers have jobs, family obligations and varying levels of commitment (time, energy) to their roles. Expecting them to have the sole responsibility for maintaining the safety net of the open flame lamps has already proven to be a failure since the previous article pointed out that they were not functioning.

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