With all the talk of red states and blue states and regional politics, we live in a time where we often view anything not connected to us as “other.” But, oddly, at least in the Eastern United States, we have been connected across the 40th parallel by a single mountain range—the Appalachians—that has served for eons as a path not just for the hikers we see along Route 7 in the Berkshires, but by the flora and fauna that have travelled this same pathway.
Kinder Morgan has begun to backpedal on a promise to pay the town of Sandisfield about $1 million in compensation for wear and tear or damage to roads and other town infrastructure.
“The future health of the lake is hanging in the balance. If we don’t address these issues soon, the lake will decline and die.”
--- Stockbridge Board of Selectmen Annual Report
According to the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services (DFS), Massachusetts fire departments responded to 431 fires involving grills, hibachis, and barbecues between 2011 and 2015.
Water supplied to schools is generally free of lead, but lead can be introduced into drinking water through plumbing and fixtures in buildings, especially in facilities more than 20 years old.
The “Table to Farm” window decal helps the public identify restaurants that are composting their food scraps and each restaurant that participates in the program receives a few decals to display in its windows.
To facilitate continued solar growth within communities around the Commonwealth, the bill continues to exempt residential and small commercial projects from the net metering cap and any net metering credit reductions.
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.
If the state Department of Environmental Protection will allow it, Biopath Solutions is ready and willing to return to the Bridge Street site and finish the job.
“As a property owner in a beautiful little town there’s nothing I’d rather see than that property cleaned up. That’s helps my property value, it helps the town.” -- Mike Arnoff, owner of property adjacent to Ried Cleaners on Main Street.
In the meantime, an environmental report says postal workers exposed to basement air are at “chronic risk” due to naphthalene, tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE).
“It’s quiet and silent and it’s making you money. It’s a win-win for the community and the environment, a secure sanctuary for endangered species. You don’t get that everyday in a neighbor.”
-- Ed Dunn, project manager for Housatonic 1 Solar
“We have lot of service industry that doesn’t pay big bucks, so we need affordable housing for families, and for single mothers with young kids.”
-- Community Preservation Committee Chair Karen Smith
The romantic vision of closer-to-nature of log homes turned into a toxic nightmare for Great Barrington where the town and the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire had to deal with the demise of New England Log Homes that processed timber on an 8-acre site on Bridge Street.
