Members of Greenpeace and other organizations gathered at the Federal Building in Bangor Thursday.

They are urging Senator Susan Collins to support legislation aimed at making it safer for people who live near facilities that use potentially dangerous chemcials.

If those chemicals ever leaked, they say thousands of people in Maine could be at risk.

The group does report that many facilities made great strides to eliminate the use of chemicals like chlorine gas since September 11th, 2001.

But that there are still a handful that haven't yet converted.

"The point we're trying to make with this stuff, which can kill almost instantly and cause many deaths, is there's no reason we should be using it when safer alternatives exist," Said David Pomerantz with Greenpeace.

The group commended Maine's pulp and paper industry for converting to safer chemcials in the past decade.

The new legislation is expected in the senate soon, the house passed the chemical and water security act of 2009 in the fall.

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