A keystone to CLF’s work to secure a clean energy future for the region is completing the transition to a coal-free New England. It is a time of historic progress: cleaner, cheaper alternatives are driving coal out of the market, and old coal plants are closing their doors. But Massachusetts remains a critical battleground for CLF’s work, with two costly old coal-fired power plants continuing to jeopardize public health and stoke climate change. That’s why we’re delighted to tell you about an event hosted by Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker entitled “The True Cost of Energy: Coal.” Councilor Decker has invited the public to a panel discussing the true costs of coal and a free screening of the critically acclaimed documentary The Last Mountain in Cambridge, MA, on Wednesday, May read more…

In a world where messages are sent instantaneously, it is hard to believe the time to consider (again) whether the continued operation of Vermont Yankee is good for Vermont would take more than a year. Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owners, proposed a schedule to Vermont regulators that would have the case completed in just over eighteen months.   CLF argued for a shorter schedule noting that Entergy’s schedule was “roughly equivalent to the gestation period for elephants.”  This is simply too long. Most cases, including the previous Vermont Yankee proceeding at the Public Service Board and the recent federal trial for Vermont Yankee were completed in far less time.  In its ruling on May 4, the Vermont Public Service Board accepted the longer time-frame Entergy requested. It also provides for two separate read more…

Another false claim by Entergy – the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear facility in Vermont – is laid to rest. On Monday, the ISO-New England came out with an important determination that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability of the electrical grid. This has been brewing for awhile and is quite significant since Entergy keeps claiming its tired old and polluting plant on the banks of the Connecticut River is needed for reliability. That claim is simply false. In a filing made with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the ISO New England stated: “[T]he ISO determined that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability for the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period. This determination is based on the expectation that certain transmission upgrades will be in place prior to the read more…

This week on TalkingFish.org: CLF's Sean Cosgrove discusses why the proposed move of the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Office to DC from MA is short-sighted and politically foolish and we share our weekly roundup of interesting news stories. read more..

I just paddled in from Waltham and boy are my arms tired…Seriously, I know I am not alone among contestants in the 30th Annual Charles River Watershed Association Run of the Charles canoe, kayak, and paddleboard race who downed several ibuprofen after Sunday’s vigorous paddle.  I think I can speak for the entire ten-person CLF team when I say the pain was worth it.  While we didn’t win the race in the literal sense, everyone on the CLF team did feel like winners knowing that we work for an organization who’s longstanding commitment to clean water in the Charles helps make events like the Run of the Charles possible. My fellow anchorman, Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Louis Porter, kept me digging for dear life as we passed up several boats in read more…

The 5 million ton elephant in Massachusetts’s nation-leading climate action plan – the oversold and overstated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from new imports of Canadian hydropower comprising more than 20% of the state’s goal – is too big to ignore. That’s why it’s encouraging that the plan’s misplaced reliance on the Northern Pass transmission project is receiving new scrutiny. Last December, CLF identified a significant problem with Massachusetts’s “Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020”: it adopted and relied on Northern Pass’s sales pitch that the project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5 million tons annually and then claimed all those emissions reductions for Massachusetts. After examining the basis for the 5 million ton figure, we concluded that – no way around it – the figure was just wrong; read more…

I received that message this week. It came in two parts. The first part was delivered by a polite and efficient Somerville, MA police officer, in the form of the below ticket. I had blown right through a red light. read more..

On Wednesday, May 9, House Bill 7581 (the O’Grady Bill) will be heard in the House Finance Committee of the Rhode Island General Assembly. The O’Grady Bill is a key legislative priority of Rhode Island’s environmental movement. The hearing is at 1:00 PM in Room 35 of the State House (Room 35 is in the basement). The O’Grady Bill would provide vitally needed funding for public transit in Rhode Island. CLF members and friends are invited to attend the May 9 hearing on the O’Grady bill in order to show support for it. Here in Rhode Island, as in the rest of New England, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions – and the fastest growing. The simple fact is that the climate change emergency cannot read more…

The Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper, along with the Coastal Conservation Association of NH, Great Bay Trout Unlimited and the NH Coastal Protection Partnership, coauthored the following editorial to The Portsmouth Herald. A copy of this OpEd was originally published in The Portsmouth Herald. You can find a copy of it online here. April 13 — To the Editor The Great Bay estuary is in decline. That’s the inescapable message of the Piscataqua Region Estuary Partnership’s (PREP) most recent (2009) State of the Estuaries report, which tracks the health of the Great Bay and Hampton/Seabrook estuaries. Of 12 primary indicators of the estuary’s health tracked by PREP, 11 show negative or cautionary trends, including two very troubling negative trends: nitrogen concentrations in Great Bay are increasing, and eelgrass vegetation — the cornerstone read more…

For some reason, the folks behind the last remaining proposed LNG import facility on the East Coast, Downeast LNG, are still pursuing their license from FERC to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay here in Maine. And even more perplexing, FERC is still willing to spend time and resources on a project that the energy market is clearly saying makes no sense, or cents for that matter. As our friends at Save Passamaquoddy Bay 3 Nation Alliance point out, Downeast LNG has “just become the sole remaining LNG import terminal on the entire continent.” In light of the already overbuilt capacity for importing LNG, the significant amount of domestic natural gas now flooding the market and bringing prices to an all-time low, and the read more…