Jason and Erin Olkowski never saw themselves as activists and community organizers. But that all changed when Invenergy came to their small Rhode Island town, with its plans to build a massive new natural gas plant next door to family homes and within a pristine conservation area.
CLF Launches Zero-Waste Project to Tackle Massachusetts’s Trash Problem On a Monday night in February, more than 100 people crowded into the Sturbridge, Massachusetts, town hall for an emergency meeting of the town’s Board of Health. Nineteen wells in the Sturbridge neighborhood closest to the massive Southbridge Landfill had just tested high for lead –… Continue reading Talking Trash
The New Frontier in the Fight to Save Boston Harbor When CLF launched its 1983 lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for dumping toxic sludge and untreated wastewater into Boston Harbor, years of neglect by the federal government, the state, the city, and polluters had turned the harbor into a shameful liability. But over time,… Continue reading Boston Harbor 2.0
For a neighborhood to truly thrive, it needs healthy people, a healthy environment, and a healthy economy with opportunities for all. Improving neighborhood environments can boost health, but traditional financing sources simply aren’t capable of addressing those needs at a project level. Recognizing the complex challenges of building healthy and sustainable communities, three years ago,… Continue reading Building Healthy Communities One Neighborhood at a Time
Local Food, Local Farms, and Lawyers Lending a Hand Noah Fralich moved back home to Maine with one ambition: to open a business on his family’s land in New Gloucester. His fledgling Norumbega Cidery was just getting off the ground when he hit a snag – the name of his business was already trademarked by… Continue reading The Legal Food Hub
A typical day at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire, finds it packed with ocean enthusiasts: children and adults touch native starfish, learn from interactive exhibits about ocean habitats, and explore tidal pools along the protected New Hampshire coastline. The Center doesn’t just aim to teach visitors about the Gulf of Maine, it… Continue reading Community Voices: Planning for the Future
Climate Impacts in Motion In September, leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, D.C., for the third annual Our Ocean Conference, hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry. Together, they committed to 136 new initiatives aimed at conserving and protecting fragile ocean areas worldwide. In between commitments from the countries of Sri Lanka and… Continue reading Our Changing Ocean
On one of those perfect, blue-sky-and-sunshine summer days that New Englanders dream of all winter long, Peter Baute emerges from a shaded trail into a small clearing overlooking Block Island Sound. At least half a dozen people mill about the clearing, cameras in hand, jockeying for the best angle of the scene before them. They’re… Continue reading Community Voices: The Clean Energy Landscape
The cleanup of Boston Harbor wasn’t Senior Counsel Peter Shelley’s first big case with CLF (as a third-year law student in the late 1970s, he was part of the landmark effort to stop oil and gas drilling on Georges Bank), but it has certainly been the most iconic of his long career with the organization.… Continue reading From the Trenches: Peter Shelley and Boston Harbor
Roseann Bongiovanni is a lifelong Chelsea resident who has led significant environmental justice campaigns for more than 21 years. She is the Executive Director of GreenRoots, Inc., an organization dedicated to achieving environmental and climate justice for Chelsea. Growing up in Chelsea and neighboring Everett, many in our community, myself included, never realized we were… Continue reading Community Voices: A Message to ExxonMobil
