University Denounces Power Plant Complaint

Community activists who appealed last month's ruling allowing operation of a Harvard-owned power plant in Boston "distorted and erroneously characterized" a 1982 study on the health risks of the plant a University lawyer said yesterdays.

Verne W. Vance Jr. '54, who represents Harvard in its legal skirmishes involving the $350 million Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP), said the University will file a response to the City of Brookline's Suffolk County Superior Court appeal by the end of this week.

MATEP is designed to provide steam, chilled water for air conditioning and electricity for the Medical School and surrounding hospitals in Boston.

$250 Million Over Budget

MATEP has faced 10 years of lawsuit by community activists and run $250 million over budget. But in January the plant finally won permission to operate its carcinogen-producing diesel engines.

At the beginning of February, residents of Brookline and Mission Hill, which neighbor the plant, submitted separate complaints arguing that the approval by the state Department of Environmental Quality Engineering (DEQE) was illegal.

Last month's DEQE decision gave Harvard the go-ahead to fire up MATEP's six diesel engines, which have been almost completely idle since their installation in 1980.

A 1982 DEQE study projected that MATEP's diesels could cause four lung cancer deaths over its 40-year operating life. Daniel G. Partan, a Boston University law professor who has helped Brookline's legal efforts, said that under Massachusetts statutes, DEQE cannot OK a power plant's operation if it might endanger human life.

Real Deaths

But Harvard lawyer Vance said the Brookline appeal confuses "real" and "statistical" deaths. The study, Vance said, did not predict that four people would die, but said that because of scientific uncertainty, the four deaths are "the upper level that the scientific evidence can not rule out."

Michael Lambert, a Roxbury resident who represents Mission Hill in court, also filed a appeal against DEQE's January decision.

The activists also appealed the operation of the diesels in 1982. But that appeal hinged on the issue of whether enough testing had been done of the carcinogenic risks of the diesels. The current appeal focuses solely on whether DEQE can allow the operation of the power plant if it may cause deaths, Vance said.

It is unclear when the Superior Court will have a decision ready on the appeal.