In short, the woman who cannot decide whether she is GI Jane, Calamity Jane, or Amelia Earhart is a despicable freak whose removal was both justified and overdue.
Front and center in the arguments was GE’s insistence on site disposal at Woods Pond on the Lee-Lenox border, Rising Pond in Great Barrington, and near Forest Street in Lee.
In the Berkshires, however, a lot of work has been done to get towns organized for a rail line, like locating stations so there’s at least a good 10-mile run between stops for efficiency.
There once was a Brooklyn Bridge across the Housatonic, a wooden one to be sure and intended for pedestrians. But still, why not make Barrington Great Again?
The Stockbridge Library's annual meeting will feature remarks by a delegation of representatives from the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation who will share their perspectives on the Stockbridge Indian Town history and discuss the legacy of Mohican veterans.
A probable carcinogen, PCBs migrate, affecting life all over the world. Research indicates the chemicals can leach out of landfills and into soil as far as several miles beyond them.
“Instead of pouring money into attorneys that fight the Environmental Protection Agency, pour it into cleaning the river.”
-- Berkshire Natural Resources’ letter to General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
GE doesn’t want the Environmental Protection Agency telling it to ship the contaminated sludge from the Housatonic River to a certified remediation facility in Texas. It wants to drop it into three Berkshire landfills instead.
“It’s all coming to a point where I feel like I can do my little thing — a symbolic push — bringing attention to what all the warriors along this river have done and what they are doing. I’m the messenger not the hero.”
-- Denny Alsop
General Electric proposes to stash PCBs from the river in three landfills: one next to Woods Pond in Lenox Dale, another near the Mass Pike in Lee, close to Goose Pond, and the third adjacent to the Rising Pond dam in Housatonic.
According to the Federal Register, EPA scientists have stated that toxic landfill liners are no guarantee and that landfill pollutants can “migrate into the broader environment. Eventually liners will either degrade, tear, or crack and will allow liquids to migrate out of the unit.” GE wants three more PCB landfills in the Berkshires. But the EPA insists on out-of-state disposal in an approved PCB facility. The matter will likely be settled in court.
Massachusetts could have conditioned the move to Boston on an expeditious, cooperative cleanup of the Housatonic River; there is no evidence that that happened. On the contrary, GE appears to have received benefits and incentives in the East, and no reminder of its responsibilities in the West.
Eagleton School is accredited by the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) and Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). In early January, Great Barrington police began an investigation into allegations of physical and emotional abuse of students.
"The Punk Singer," a 2013 documentary, follows feminist activist, punk zine writer, and lead singer of punk bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre Kathleen Hanna.
