New biomass rules take effect Friday!

Hey, biomass developers! If you can't meet at least 50% efficiency, then you won't be considered green and renewable, meaning you will not be eligible for subsidies from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Mass. Dept. of Energy has announced.

In the last three years, both pro and anti-biomass activists have spent many hours in hearings and many hours researching and submitting testimony and evidence.  Yes, we would have liked the new rules to be even stronger.  But even as they are, not a single one of the biomass plants currently operating in New England can meet the new standards-- this according to the president of the pro-bio trade group, the Biomass Power Association.

Most biomass plants operate at less than 25% efficiency.  (Can you imagine if only  25% of the gas you put in your car's tank actually took you somewhere?) Burning trees and waste wood is no more "green and renewable" than coal or oil.

Let's be clear: these new rules do not prohibit the construction of biomass plants in Massachusetts; they simply mean those plants won't qualify for Renewable Energy Credits.  The developers of the proposed biomass plant in Springfield, Palmer Renewable Energy, has said it doesn't need the RECs to operate profitably. But I can't imagine they're thrilled with the new rules.

Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, Arise, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Toxics Action Center have accomplished a lot this year to keep PRE from moving forward in Springfield.  The city council revoked the company's special permit that a previous, all at-large version had approved, and when the building commissioner gave PRE a building permit anyway, we and the city council successfully appealed to the zoning board.  We appealed the plant's air permit to the Dept. of Environmental Protection, and the final decision is still pending.  PRE is appealing the building permit revocation to the Massachusetts Land Court, so our fight is not over.  But Springfield residents have had three years (so far!) where our already sick air has not been made sicker by spewing pollutants and greenhouse gases into our air.

Now we get to save our RECs for energy production for those sources that deserve it.

The end of large scale biomass? New regulations put on the brakes

I suspect the residents of Springfield think biomass is a dead issue, but we-- Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield--  continue to take whatever steps  necessary to keep Palmer Renewable Energy from constructing s biomass incinerator in Springfield.

We're appealing the Dept. of Environmental Protection's air permit (along with the Toxics Action Center and the Conservation Law Foundation) and preparing a defense in Land Court as a result of the Zoning Board removing the building permit issued to PRE.

But always, in the back of our minds, we've been waiting for the Dept. of Energy Resources to release its new regulations about biomass, and whether the plants proposed in Greenfield, Russell and Springfield will be eligible for the state's subsidy program, the Renewable Energy Credits.

Well, finally!  Here's a summary: http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/doer/renewables/biomass/summary-of-rps-proposed-final-regulation.pdf.  


DOER is going to require 50% efficiency to be eligible for RECs, while the proposed plants are struggling to reach even 25% efficiency-- just one of the reasons we oppose these plants.


Keep in mind, however, that Palmer Renewable Energy has said that it doesn't need RECs to operate profitably-- although I'm sure PRE wouldn't turn down the money if eligible.  So we can't let our guard down.

Greenfield recorder; By RICHIE DAVIS

Recorder Staff

The state Department of Energy Resources on Friday released revisions to its regulations for how Renewable Portfolio Standards would apply to biomass generating plants.

This set of revisions, which comes almost exactly a year after draft regulations that were severely criticized as too rigid by developers of the wood-fired generators, incorporates recommendations made last
June by the state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications,Utilities, and Energy.

Mary Booth, a major critic of large-scale biomass plants, said with the new rules, the state “sorted out fact from fiction (and) sided with science, and with the people of Massachusetts.”

The proposal would apply to pending projects, including a 47-megawatt wood-fired plant planned for Greenfield by Madera Energy Inc. of Cambridge. His plant would be built in the I-91 Industrial Park.

Madera Principal Matthew Wolfe declined to comment on the latest proposal Friday, saying he was a “just sifting through” the new document. The project, he said, has been in limbo for two years pending the new rules, which set the standards for projects that are eligible for receiving green energy tax credits to help make them economically feasible.

“We’re waiting on a resolution to these regs,” said Wolfe, pointing to a public comment period that extends to June 18.

The proposed regulations come after harsh public criticism from environmental groups and a 2010 state-sponsored study by Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences that concluded the wood-fired
generating plants release more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per unit of energy than oil, coal, or natural gas — and that the greenhouse gases take a long time for forests to absorb.

The proposed regulations would require that wood-fired generating plants be 50 percent efficient to be
eligible for one-half renewable energy credit per megawatt-hour, — slightly better than a stateof- the-art coal-fired power plant. They allow one credit per megawatt-hour for generators achieving 60 percent efficiency and include harvesting standards designed to protect forest soils.

Facilities must also have 20-year lifecycle and carbon dioxide emissions that are no greater than 50 percent the emissions from a natural gas facility.

Janet Sinclair of Buckland, who leads an antibiomass group based in Greenfield called Concerned Citizens of Franklin County, said Friday “We think burning trees for electricity is a bad idea. And I find it to be
terrible public policy to reward biomass with the public’s money at 50 percent efficiency. A wood stove does better than that. Energy efficiency costs a third as much as biomass for electricity. We should put our money where it will do the most good.

“We will be reviewing the regulations carefully and commenting during the 30 day comment period.

Booth, director of the Partnership for Public Integrity, said “Massachusetts made history today,” calling the proposal “the first science-based policy in the country” and one “recognizing that high-emissions biomass power doesn’t belong in a renewable energy portfolio alongside no-emissions technologies like wind and solar power.”

All written comments on this proposed final regulation should be submitted electronically in PDF format by June 18 at 5 p.m. to doer.biomass@state.ma.us.

The state expects to have afinal regulation in place this summer.


MegSheehan, chairwoman of the Massachusettsbased Stop Spewing Carbon campaign,called the proposal “an important step to ensuring that when trees are burnedfor energy, it is done in the most efficient way that also preserves ourforests.”


You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 Ext. 269

Lawn care workshop at Better Life Whole Foods

Let me tell you why I (Michaelann) am promoting this event:
-- First, I was asked to do so by a woman who has worked hard to stop biomass in Springfield.
-- Second, Better Life is, to the best of my knowledge, Springfield's only health food store.
-- Third, Better Life is one of the hundred and fifty businesses in Springfield who spoke out in opposition to biomass.
-- Fourth, if you're going to have a lawn, do it organically!  (Think of the bees.)

Please help protect the Quabbin forest

Please help protect the Quabbin forest!  (photo and post by Chris Matera)

This is the most important piece of undeveloped forest in Massachusetts that protects the drinking water for 2.2 million citizens, and the public owns it, but private logging companies want to start logging it again.

Environment Massachusetts is running an excellent campaign to permanently ban logging in the Quabbin and needs our help now.

Please go to this easy link to send a message:

https://secure3.convio.net/engage/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=317

For a reminder why we need to keep the private logging companies out of the quabbin, please see:

Quabbin Watershed Clearcutting - Ground & Aerial (15 MB):   www.maforests.org/QUABBIN.pdf

  

Quabbin Watershed Clearcutting - Google (5 MB): 

www.maforests.org/QUABBIN_Google_Earth.pdf

Please forward this message to friends and family!

thank you

Chris Matera

Massachusetts Forest Watch
www.maforests.org
www.maforests.org/MFWBmess.pdf
413-341-3878

Rally for clean air tomorrow!

Local Residents Rally to Ask Governor Patrick to Stand Up For Strong Clean Air Protections

Biomass is not a clean energy solution for air quality issues in Massachusetts

Springfield – On Saturday, December 3rd, the Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign will be hosting a Clean Air Rally in front of Gov. Patrick’s offices in Springfield. Several dozen public health professionals and local activists will be calling on the Governor and the Department of Environmental Protection to protect our health and our air by retiring aging coal plants and looking at alternatives to dirty biomass incinerators in Central and Western Massachusetts. The activists will display 1,000 petitions calling on the governor for stronger pollution safeguards and announcing our 80 business coalition partners. In addition to listed speakers, local residents will be delivering testimonials, all speaking as to why we need to move beyond coal in the Pioneer Valley and how we can do it.

Occupy/Take Back Springfield

No One Leaves and others start the rally

Too tired to write much text tonight, but Occupy Springfield did happen...about 35 people...more if you count the ones who came and went.  And at the Take Back Springfield rally tonight, Occupy folks joined in and swelled the crowd to about 150 people.  many people were then headed in to a Springfield City Council meeting, and I don't know what happened there, because I had another meeting.  But I'll post when Ido know.  Basically, there were three big issues propelling ralliers to the meeting:

• protecting the recently passed  ordinance requiring banks to put money in escrow (most of which they'll get back) whenever they foreclose on a property;
• a non-binding resolution urging the City of Springfield to remove its funds from Bank of America;
• encouraging city councilors to protect their vote revoking Palmer Renewable Energy's special permit to construct a biomass plant by appealing the building permit PRE seems likely to receive!

Jesse Lederman, speaker from Stop toxic Incineration in Spfld

Patti and Bill, Arise/STIS

Arise members: Ellen (recently pepper-sprayed in D.C) & Christina, founder of 2004's Sanctuary City

By the way, at a General Assembly meeting today, Occupiers decided to be back next Monday, Court Sq., from 3 to 6 pm.  Yippee!

One more big push: we need strong biomass regulations now!

President Obama's rejection of new regulations reducing smog causing, ozone-producing chemicals this month has at least one important lesson for us: we'd better be ready to protect ourselves on every state and local level we can.

Our long local fight in Springfield to stop Palmer Renewable Energy from constructing a biomass plant in Springfield-- as well as the struggles in Russell  and greenfield-- have become part of a statewide struggle with the Biomass Accountability Project to limit the subsidizing of biomass by the Patrick Administration.  So many of us are headed to Boston on Monday.  If you can't make it you can still have your voice heard-- sign the petition to the Governor and Lieutenant Governor here at Stop Spewing Carbon.

WHAT:

Rally and Press Conference Demanding Governor strengthen rules on subsidizing dirty biomass energy.

A coalition of health, social justice and environmental groups are calling on Gov. Patrick and Lt. Gov. Murray to limit subsidies for dirty biomass energy. The groups are demanding the administration keep their 2010 promise that power plants burning woody biomass for electricity meet strict standards to receive subsidies.

WHEN:         Monday, September 19, 2011  

                         Rally: 10:30 am

                  Press Conference:  11 a.m.

WHERE:          State House: Nurses’ Hall

Groups seeking stronger regulations: Sierra Club, Toxics Action Center, Conservation Law Foundation, Mass Audubon, Clean Water Action Alliance of MA, Environmental League of MA, American Lung Association, Environment MA, Biomass Accountability Project, MA Breast Cancer Coalition, Partnership for Policy Integrity, Natural Resources of Maine, NRDC, Concerned Citizens of Franklin County, Concerned Citizens of Russell, MA Forest Watch, ARISE for Social Justice (Springfield), MassPIRG, Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield,  Chelsea Creek Action Group, and others.

Photo from fotdmike's photostream at Flickr.

Don't burn our forests for electricity!

Great to get this from the Sierra Club-- they were late to the game, but with us now. Tell Gov. Patrick -- Don't Burn Our Forests for Electricity!  Right now, Massachusetts is considering approval for five new biomass plants. If built these plants would only generate 1% of our state's electricity but consume the equivalent of 50 football fields of trees every day!1 Massachusetts recently commissioned a study to look at the effects of burning trees for electricity and Gov. Patrick is considering stregthening the state's biomass regulations to protect our forests and our health. Tell Gov. Patrick you support strong regulations to protect our forests! The biomass industry is putting a lot of pressure on the Governor to keep our state's regulations weak. We need to let the Gov. know we want him to stand up for our forests. Send Gov. Patrick a message and let him know you support strong standards to protect our forests and our health! Because trees grow back, forest biomass is currently treated as "renewable energy." But new science shows that inefficient and polluting biomass facilities emit even more greenhouse gases than most coal plants.  Our nation needs to move beyond coal and oil but we need to make sure we are replacing them with truly clean, renewable sources like wind and solar power. Take action today to tell the Governor we want the strongest possible biomass regulations based on the best available science. Together we can protect our forests, our health and move toward a clean energy future! Sincerely, James McCaffrey Sierra Club

Yes-- we're appealing Dept. of Environmental Protection's air permit for PRE.

In today's Republican, Pete Goonan has a story about the next steps in fighting to keep Palmer Renewable Energy's biomass incinerator out of Springfield.  The Conservation Law Foundation and Toxics Action Center have both filed appeals to the Department of Environmental Protection's issuance of an air permit. CLF is filing on behalf of its members, which includes many people from Springfield, and Arise for Social Justice.  I want to say thank you to both CLF and the Toxics Action Center, which have provided us with invaluable support the last two years, for taking up this battle.

Check out the new advertisement from the American Lung Association.  It reminds me of when one of our Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield members used the bulk of her two minutes before the Springfield City Council playing a recording of a child having an asthma attack.  Our city council did the right thing and revoked the local permit, but, not unexpectedly, PRE is now suing the city.  So the battle goes on.

I wrote on Monday about why local control may be the only control we can count on in the short term.  But even local control  is hard-won!  We have a lot of community education and mobilization still to do.  Want to help?  Get in touch.

Join Arise and the New England Climate Summer riders Wednesday for food and conversation!

Wow!  Last week the Springfield Institute organized to community to participate in an Environmental Justice Bike Tour.  This week, the New England Climate Summer riders will be in Springfield, and tomorrow, Wednesday, will be joining us at Arise for a potluck supper and great conversation.  Join us and help build the connections between climate change and our local fights for clean air to breathe and a green city to live in.
Wednesday, 5:30 , Arise, 467 State St.

What's Climate Change Summer?  (from their website):
New England Climate Summer is a summer internship program for college students, graduate students, and recent graduates. Climate Summer riders travel exclusively by bicycle in small teams across New England, spending approximately one week in a community before biking on to the next. While in each town, riders connect with community leaders that are actively addressing society's addiction to fossil fuels by crafting local solutions that strengthen communities. Riders bring with them a movement-building perspective and ethos, empowering those they meet and helping to highlight the important work of local organizations with the local press as well as in the 2011 State of the Movement Report, which will catalogue the efforts of groups in all the communities the various teams visit.

What's their philosophy?
From southern Connecticut to northern Maine, from the Massachusetts coast to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, communities across New England are actively addressing society's addiction to fossil fuels through local solutions and building a more sustainable world. We know that these communities are leading the way, but recognize that their stories are not being shared. They are not getting the respect and attention they deserve, and their ideas are not traveling as quickly as they need to.
Over 9 summer weeks, Climate Summer bikers learn from, cross-pollinate and spotlight these initiatives by working with community leaders to connect diverse constituencies and weave a powerful movement for a better future. Riders live their values as they travel exclusively by bike and join the next generation of movement leaders.

Graphic by Carrie Watkins

Justice Embodied Bearing the future to protect the Earth

This article really makes you think.


Justice Embodied
Bearing the future to protect the Earth
by _Sandra Cuffe
The Dominion - http://www.dominion paper.ca

Image from: vibrakeys.com
(http://www.dominion paper.ca/ images/3906)
VANCOUVER—A boy found his younger brother’s body hanging in the basement.
Another mine passed the environmental review process. More women are going
missing and are murdered. The search for a nuclear waste site continues.
Stories told by the media are presented as a series of disconnected
incidents and issues. Most governments, federal or otherwise, work in a similar
framework of disconnection, whether to determine jurisdiction or to deflect
accountability. Public discussion often separates reality into compartments.
The discourse of many groups and campaigns working on environmental and
climate issues explicitly rejects this disconnected perspective. However, that
same discourse has been questioned for its failure to make many other
connections that Indigenous peoples, women and others have been pointing out
for decades.
“Once you go to a birth, you know how connected you are to the earth, and
to all creation around us,” says Neddie Thompson, a traditional midwife from
Akwesasne, in Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) territory. “It’s the women who give
birth to all of our children...to take care of this land.”
“As an Indigenous feminist, one of the links I, as well as many Indigenous
women across the world, see is between reproductive health and
environmental justice. Simultaneously I am angry about the lack of recognition of this
link within most environmental discourse,” wrote Cree/Norwegian Indigenous
feminist Erin Konsmo. Also a student, she added that “[it’s] insulting to
hear in environmental classes that the idea of any form of sustainability
is a new concept.”
The declaration from the International Indigenous Women’s Environmental and
Reproductive Health Symposium held last year in California states that “
[sovereignty] and autonomy in relation to our lands, territories and
resources are intricately connected to sovereignty and autonomy in relation to our
bodies, minds and spirits.”

You can read the rest of the story at: (http://www.dominion paper.ca/ articles/ 3897#)

Date set for Springfield City Council hearing on biomass incinerator

OK, this is it-- on Tuesday, May 17, 4:30 pm., at the request of Council President Jose Tosado and Councilor Melvin Edwards, Springfield City Council will hold a hearing to consider amending or revoking Palmer Renewable Energy's permit to construct a biomass incinerator in Springfield.

We who have been opposing this plant have been organizing for almost two years, doing everything we can think of to wake up our community to this threat to our already poor air.

I'll have a lot more to say about the City Council hearing in the days ahead, but there are two actions people opposed to biomass incinerators can take right now, whether you live in Springfield or not.

First, you can comment to the Dept. of Environmental Protection about the draft air permit for Palmer Renewable Energy.  From the Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield website:

Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield has recently learned that the developers of the PRE biomass incinerator have paid extra fees to 'fast-track' their state permitting process.  And they only need one more permit before they can put a shovel in the ground. Can you please spare a minute to click here and comment on the State's draft air permit? The deadline for the air permit comment period is Friday, April 29.

Hampden County is already home to the dirtiest, unhealthiest air in the state (please visit http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/massachusetts). Several hazardous air pollutants are already alarmingly above allowable levels.  Springfield children have blood lead levels and respiratory disease rates twice that of the children of the state.

You can make a difference!  We have already stopped these developers from burning construction and demolition debris in their incinerator.  The state and city of Springfield are taking notice of our requests for clean air and its link to our health.  Thank you for continuing to support this citizen activist effort by sending the message that clean energy does not come from a smokestack. 

Second, you can sign a petition to Gov. Deval Patrick, asking for a three year moratorium on all biomass permits in Massachusetts.

More to come.

Photo from Basibanget's photostream at Flickr.

How to support unions after breaking the labor taboo

I know there's been a lot of discussion (most of which I haven't been privy to directly) over the blog post I wrote about building trade union behavior at the Palmer Renewable Energy air permit hearing.  As I suspected might happen, my criticizing unions is of greater importance to at least some union members than the booing and bullying tactics of the building trades.  How quickly someone can move into the enemy camp by breaking a taboo: criticizing unions.

When I sat down to write my blog post, less than 24 hours after the hearing, relationships with unions was not the first thing on my mind.  Poor strategic thinking?  What very much was on my mind was the fear in the eyes of the children sitting in the Duggan Middle School auditorium who had come to talk about their own asthma.  They were bewildered.  They didn't understand what was happening.  I was ashamed that I had asked them to come only to be subjected to booing.  In fact I was furious, and still am.  But everyone who came to oppose the biomass incinerator felt attacked and traumatized-- even we relatively thick-skinned organizers

I admit I don't understand unions very well, beyond an intellectual level.  I've never been in a union, and most of the people in Arise, very low-wage workers, have never been in a union, either.  And yet we have never failed to support the organized labor movement.  Anyone who reads this blog, or my own blog MichaelannLand, knows that.  So a little context to the "Michaelann as enemy to the labor movement" might be warranted. And the rest of the labor movement, beyond the building trades who were present at the hearing, should be asking themselves: who really did harm to the public perception of organized labor on April 5?

At the same time, I could (and should)  have applied that context to my own blog post.  I wrote, " I will tell you that my first reaction was that you couldn't pay me enough for me to ever show up at another pro-union rally."  Well, yup, that was my first reaction.  But intellectually, I have not changed my mind about the absolute necessity of supporting organized labor.  Yesterday at Arise I was trying to explain to Ruben how unions help keep the wages up for everybody, not just union members, by using the fruit-picking story from The Grapes of Wrath.  He understood what I was saying, even though, at the air permit hearing, where he carried around our giant asthma inhaler, he got more than one sneer from members of the building trade unions.

After the air permit hearing, I asked a couple of my contacts in labor to explore three questions: 1. Is there a way that what happened at the air permit hearing could be used to build a bridge between the building trade unions, who often stand aloof from labor's larger struggles, and the rest of the movement?  2. How did the building trades so successfully mobilize at the air permit hearing, who paid for it, and were they likely to do it again at the still-pending city council hearing about PRE's local permit? And 3:  Is there any way that other unions could take stands against biomass? 

If any of these questions get answered in a way that moves us forward, then I'll try to decide if it's worth it to be viewed as the enemy by organized labor (although Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield and Arise shouldn't be tarred with that brush).. I'm not at all convinced that there would be much discussion among local labor going on at all if I hadn't written what I did, even though I wish I had been clearer about not indicting all of labor.  Too many times our movement, such as it is, avoids tough questions,  fails to think seriously about what divides us, and calls out for solidarity when the foundation is shaky and ill-defined. I don't know why I think it should be any different this time around, but I still have hope.

Solidarity mural: Hands in Solidarity, Hands of Freedom mural on the side of the United Electrical Workers trade union building on West Monroe Street at Ashland Avenue in Chicago, Illinois-- photo from Atelier Teee's photostream at Flickr.

The only numbers you need to know to understand the budget debate.

Republican plan for the next ten years:
Cut spending on government programs over the next decade by $4.3 trillion. 

Cut tax revenues over the same period by $4.2 trillion. 

In other words: steal from the poor (actually,  steal from almost everyone) and give to the rich.

Oh, and squeeze social policy change in there, too, most of which will benefit corporations by removing regulations.


Here we are in Western Massachusetts desperately fighting to stop three polluting biomass proposals tokeep our air from getting any worse than it is, and yet the Environmental Protection Agency is going to lose 16% of its funding just in the current, stop-gap budget.  Republicans say that environmental regulations hurt jobs.  What they really mean is it hurts corporations, two-thirds of whom paid no federal taxes at all last year.

I've often wondered just what rich people think they and their children are going to do in twenty, fifty or a hundred years, after they've completely ruined the economy and the environment.  Living in gated communities won't cut it, because the rich will still have to breathe the same air.  Live underground?  Colonize the moon?  Are they really that self-delusional?

I hope it's clear to everyone that winning protections on the local level is about all we've got--  that's not saying much, given that federal cuts produce state cuts and state cuts produce local cuts....but at least, in terms of the mayor and city council, we put these folks in office and we can take them out again if they fail to listen to what the people of Springfield want.

Arise recently joined a statewide coalition, Campaign for Our Communities, which is basically about restoring the income tax rate to 5.9%, with subsidies and rebates for anyone earning under $100,000 so that we would not experience the increase.  Only we're not supposed to frame it as raising taxes!  And we're not supposed to talk about the cuts poor people are experiencing, supposedly because that's not the "message" that will resonate with the middle class-- who wants to protect poor people?

Frankly, I'm sick of the bull, from progressives as well as reactionaries. Let's start telling the truth, people, it's class warfare, and we, the poor and working class,  didn't start it.  But we'd better get ready to fight it.

Photo from ElyceFeliz's photostream at Flickr.

Extremely hazardous air today!

And Palmer Renewable Energy wants to add to this!  Hey, Springfield people, keep calling your city councilors and tell them you want them to revoke PRE's permit-- and everyone else,  and for sign this petition asking for a three year moratorium on air permits for biomass plants.

More info: Partnership for Policy Integrity.

Behind that sign...

Behind that sign is Elizabeth Lederman, with the great courage to stand in the middle of an unfriendly crowd at the air permit hearing.

Photo: Dave Roback, The Republican

Just tell it like it is: are we getting a health study or not?

Guess I've reached my bullshit quota for the week.

This afternoon I went to Holyoke to hear Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach present one of his regional health dialogues on new directions in public health.   I was going to wait until after the presentation to catch up with him and ask him a question: when was the DPH going to do the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) for which it had received funding nearly a year ago?  I haven't been able to get an answer from my contacts at the Environmental Health Bureau of DPH, and the clock is ticking-- the biomass incinerator we're trying to stop is only two months away from getting its air permit.

After Auerbach finished his presentation and called for questions, an older woman stood up and I recognized her right away as Jean Caldwell; in fact I'd just heard her give a statement at Tuesday's Dept. of Environmental Protection air permit hearing..  She doesn't come to meetings of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, but has become very engaged in this issue since our first phone conversations, doing her own research, contacting public officials and writing letters to the newspaper. 

She gave him a  overview of Tuesday's hearing, and mentioned a plant in Connecticut which required zero emissions from a proposed plant before they would approve it.  She said that while she recognized DPH had no authority over decisions made by DEP, what could they do to help us?  Possibly a Health Impact Assessment?

Auerbach had started nodding during Jean's presentation, showing he was familiar with Springfield's situation.  He began his answer by agreeing she was right about the relationship between DEP and DPH.  He then said  that as she knew, DPH had suffered substantial budget cuts.  DPH had the resources to provide existing data, but if she was thinking about focus groups, community input, anything in-depth, they just didn't have the money.  Of course he took about two minutes to say this, while my blood started to boil.  We have been depending on this study, and even though suspicion has been building up that it just wasn't going to happen, we've been trying to keep faith.

When he finished, I stood up, not waiting for him to call on me.

"Excuse me, that's not correct," I said, and introduced myself.  "DPH received a grant from Pew Charitable Trust to do this study and we have been waiting for it to begin.  I know it had to be reconfigured after the plant decided to burn green wood instead of construction and demolition debris-- but that was five months ago, and I'm not getting my phone calls to Suzanne Condon answered about when the study will start."

"Yes, we did get that grant," he said, "but that was for a different project."

"Why don't you just ask Suzanne to call me," I said, picked up my notebook, and left.  I could tell I might really lose it if I stayed any longer.  I wasn't yelling but I know my anger showed.  Mr. Auerbach did more than dissemble when he didn't tell Jean that DPH actually had a grant for the study. 

I probably now will get a call from Suzanne Condon, and I'm sure she won't be happy.   But I think we deserve the truth.  This has not been an easy week for any of us who are fighting this plant.  We've had rogue labor booing us, bureaucrats dissembling, and corporados cheerleading with their cynical  "clean and green"  mantra.  But we've had our resolve hardened and we're getting ready for whatever comes next.  Want to get involved?  Call Arise and leave a message for Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield.

Graphic from Tomas Brechler's photostream at Flickr.

Stooges for the rich

I've been so tied up with the fall-out and next steps from  Tuesday's biomass air permit hrearing that I've only kept half an ear to the national news. I've had time to glance at the headlines and know that our country is  headed for a government shut-down, but only tonight did I pay attention to some of the riders on policy Republicans are insisting be passed with the budget.

A chief target is the Environmental Protection Agency, which would be forbidden to regulate greenhouse gasses-- costs too many jobs, Republicans say.  Of course this put me in mind of Tuesday night's trade union vocal support support for Palmer Renewable Energy's biomass proposal.  Maybe those guys would agree with the Republicans on this one.

Here we are in the middle of the biggest upward transfer of wealth in eighty years and yet there are people out there thinking that making rich people richer is going to be good for them.  Maybe they haven't thought about it that way; the typical Tea Party member is a sheep who cries out for tax cuts and smaller government and then won't be able to get her aging mother into adult day care and her kids into a decent school.  No problem for the rich, though.

Poor and working class people don't think that way.  That doesn't mean we have all that much class consciousness-- hell, poor people would love to be rich-- but our expectations have gotten very low, as low as our economic ranking.  We got pushed down the ladder back in the 80's and 90's and have never accumulated any wealth to speak of in a lifetime of work..  Many poor people under forty don't know that times have ever been different.  We're so numb from assaults we hardly even feel it anymore.

I sat in a meeting today that is trying to promote a campaign to increase state revenue by returning to a higher previous income tax rate with substantial personal exemptions for the bottom 60%.  We spent a good bit of time talking about messaging and finding the right way to convey to the public that essential services are at risk-- firefighters, teachers, nurses, et cetera.

Meanwhile I'm wondering why we aren't out there telling the truth to people: the rich are stealing our lives!  They don't care that they ruin our environment, consign our children to mediocrity, shorten our days.

And they don't even need the money.

April 11: Participatory Budgeting presentation and panel

Hey, I'm swiping the whole rest of this post from The Springfield Institute (check them out) because I'm part of the panel, but somehow I didn't catch that David Panagore was a co-panelist.....David Panagore, former chief development office for Springfield's former Finance Control Board....who slid Palmer Renewable Energy's proposal for a construction and demolition-burning biomass incinerator so easily through the City Council and the local permitting process in 2008.  Wonder what he thinks of it all now?  I'll have to make sure I ask him.

Participatory Budgeting: International trend, local possibilities

By

Aron Goldman

– March 31, 2011Posted in: Economic & workforce development, Featured, Green jobs/economy, Local democracy & civic engagement

Date: April 11, 2011, 4-5:30 pm (RSVP here)
Location: Springfield Technical Community College, Scibelli Hall (Bldg 2), 7th Floor
Presenters: Chicago Alderman Joe Moore; Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Brown University; José Tosado, Springfield City Council President; David Panagore, City of Hartford Chief Operations Officer; Michaelann Bewsee, Arise for Social Justice Executive Director; Ayanna Crawford, education consultant.
First developed in Brazil, Participatory Budgeting (PB) has spread throughout Latin America and has been implemented in over 1,000 municipalities worldwide. But it has only recently arrived in the US—in Chicago’s 49th Ward. Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, named the “Most Valuable Local Official” in the country by The Nation, will share his experience implementing PB in his ward. (Over 1,600 residents came together to directly decide how to allocate a $1.3 million discretionary budget.) Brazillian PB expert from Brown University, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, will briefly provide some international context. Then, a dynamic group of officials and community leaders will consider the value of such a model for their own constituents, and audience interaction will follow.
All are welcome. Event sponsors: Springfield Technical Community College, The Springfield Institute, and groups from Amherst College. More background on PB here: www.participatorybudgeting.org

Unions tried to bully us tonight....shame on them.

I'm not going to say much now, because I've got some investigating to do, but tonight when we biomass opponents turned up at the air permit hearing for Palmer Renewable Energy's incinerator, we were greeted by an astounding sight-- about 300 members of various building trade unions, including some student groups, with matching tee-shirts, slick posters, stickers and two canopies set up to keep out of the rain.  At first I had to laugh, because we had clearly been outmaneuvered, and I have some sympathy....but it didn't last long.

I talked to some of the union folks and they wouldn't tell the truth about where they came from or what city they lived in.  I asked  some of them what they knew about biomass and it wasn't much-- might have come right our of a  Dick and Jane primer.  But it was obvious they'd been fed their soundbites.

Their behavior in the Duggan Middle School auditorium was appalling.  They actually booed every anti-biomass speaker, including an elderly woman, a pediatrician who spoke about the kids with asthma he treated, a respiratory therapist, an elderly man...they went on and on.  There were a number of children with asthma who had volunteered to come to the press conference we held, and they were scared...one little boy's eyes brimmed with tears.

I will tell you that my first reaction was that you couldn't pay me enough for me to ever show up at another pro-union rally..  Organized labor sure didn't make any friends tonight with their ignorant and bullying behavior.  John Bennett from Mass Senior Action reminded me that  the building trades didn't even show up for pro-union rallies.  But it wasn't just who was there from the unions, but also who wasn't there.  If other unions disapprove of their trade union brothers, they sure keep quiet about it.

Then suddenly almost all of them were gone-- whisked away on the buses they came in on?

Who paid for the tee-shirts?  Who paid for the signs?.  Is it true that the union apprentices were told that if they didn't show up for the hearing, not to bother coming back?

I was proud of our people, who were knowledgeable and well-prepared, and didn't let themselves be intimidated.

And to the union members, I can only say...shame on you.  Shame on you.