“There are so few right whales left that every death brings this species closer to extinction,” said Erica Fuller, a senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation.
By providing our country with clean, renewable energy, those tiny lines on the far horizon mean thousands of families won’t face the sickness and shortened lives that are required to produce fossil fuel energy.
The 100-acre ExxonMobil tank farm in Everett will not be allowed to store fuel anymore as a result of a settlement agreement between the company and the Conservation Law Foundation. “This is a facility where ExxonMobil, which has known through work by its own scientists about the risks of extreme weather to their facilities, has done nothing to prepare for extreme storms,” said foundation President Brad Campbell.
CLF president Bradley Campbell said in a statement that its settlement with Exxon “should put operators of similar climate-vulnerable facilities on notice that they cannot turn a blind eye to the extreme weather dangers driven by climate change.”
The Massachusetts Land Court ruled that a building permit issued in 2011 to Palmer Renewable Energy has long expired, dealing a blow to plans for a $150 million, 35-megawatt wood-burning power plant long planned for East Springfield. The project was opposed by the state’s U.S. senators, the community and environmental groups.
The Conservation Law Foundation reached an agreement with Schnitzer Steel over heavy metal pollution going into the water in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico
“It’s about time this multi-billion-dollar company complied with the law,” Conservation Law Foundation Attorney Chelsea Kendall said in a statement Monday. “Toxic runoff from Schnitzer’s facilities has been contaminating waters that people depend on for drinking and recreation. This $2 million settlement will go a long way towards cleaning up these rivers and ensuring the company ends this harmful pollution.”
We’ve just seen the planet’s hottest summer. Torrential rains and flooding have cost billions and threatened lives in Vermont and Massachusetts. Ocean waters off our coast are heating more rapidly than any in North America, and wildfires have given us sore throats, dirty air, and brown skies. We need to do better. The ISO needs to pursue rapid change — now.
“While Shell tries every trick in the book to avoid coming clean about its involvement in the climate crisis, our community is in danger,” said Darrèll Brown, vice president of CLF Rhode Island.
One source of pollution that probably won’t come up is homes and buildings. But in 2020, burning oil, propane, and gas for space and water heating generated close to a quarter of Connecticut’s smog-forming pollution. That’s eight times more than power plants.
