“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.
With heavier rainfall events expected as a result of climate change, the groups said there’s little time to waste to protect Boston’s waterways. “These iconic rivers are suffering because of the EPA’s consistent foot-dragging,” said Heather Govern, CLF’s vice president of clean air and water.
Under its agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation, GlobalFoundries committed to build a 5-megawatt solar facility in Essex Junction and to comply with Vermont’s environmental laws — in particular, the state’s renewable energy standard, which requires utilities to obtain more and more of their electricity from renewable sources.
Fifty years ago this week, Congress adopted the Clean Water Act, a landmark in environmental legislation aimed at cleaning up many of the nation’s waterways that had become too polluted for people to swim or fish to survive.
But if history is any guide, we shouldn’t hold our breath for ISO-New England to take climate change seriously.
