Bradley Campbell, Conservation Law Foundation president and CEO, joined to discuss various environmental headlines, including Gov. Maura Healey’s climate plans. For the full story, click here.
The climate crisis is already affecting our lives. From floods to extreme heat, to lack of consistent snow on our mountains, these changing conditions are affecting our health, our homes, our livelihoods and our treasured pastimes here in Vermont.
The state’s Global Warming Solutions Act and environmental justice laws are a great start. They are already having an impact on the ground. Now is the time to build on these successes and go further to protect our communities.
In the last five years, the foundation successfully settled eight lawsuits against bus vendors, four of which serve schools.
“We really have to put the pressure on to get these companies to transition,” said Heather Govern, vice president and director of CLF’s Clean Air and Water Program.
Christopher Kilian is a lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation, a nonprofit that sued the state and Mashpee, arguing that Massachusetts law makes it illegal for towns to allow septic tanks that directly or indirectly release pollutants, including nitrogen, into surface water.
“Urban communities suffer disproportionately from toxic, polluted air,” said Heather Govern, director of CLF’s Clean Air and Water program, in a press release. “Holyoke and Worcester are two of the cities most burdened by negative health impacts like asthma because of this type of pollution. Durham School Services must own up to its role in this problem.”
Staci Rubin, the Vice President of Environmental Justice at Conservation Law Foundation, calls Monday’s event, “a victory, 32 years in the making.”
One of the problems with this was the increase in traffic and air pollution was of great concern. And the Conservation Law Foundation actually sued the state and said, you know, you’re going to be violating the Clean Air Act by doing this and you really have to do something to mitigate it.
“Burning wood for electricity is a bad idea to begin with, and building a biomass plant in a residential neighborhood is just evil,” said Johannes Epke, an attorney at environmental nonprofit Conservation Law Foundation, an opponent of the plant.
“Rather than leaving it to individual homeowners to upgrade their septic systems, communities should look at what’s happening in their watershed,” said Nivison. “That is going to be the least heavy lift for homeowners, and it should be the most efficient way to get those waters as clean as possible as soon as possible.”
Transitioning to clean energy and achieving climate justice require hard choices, and progressives and environmentalists need to recognize that those choices are necessary. The work to achieve a cleaner, more equitable future will not be possible unless we lead the cause of permitting reform and stop ceding that ground to the opposition.
