The Declaration of Independence makes crystal clear that the Founders fought for the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …” Having lost the 2020 election, Donald Trump became the first president in our history to oppose the peaceful transfer of power and to try, in...
So, when the trucks come rumbling through, who you gonna call? Not the Ghostbusters. As for calling Town Hall and members of your select board, can you really expect those who put you in this position in the first place to actively and effectively get you out of it?
In 2024, I plan to encourage my town leaders to keep top of mind that our health and economic future is at stake in the Housatonic Rest of River cleanup plan.
“We certainly don’t want to be the last town to move forward with this; we want to act on this as soon as possible,” Town Manager Christopher Ketchum said.
The fact is our region of the EPA has demonstrated its bias towards landfilling and once again will allow yet another massive PCB-dump in Berkshire County. That a handful of local officials have substituted their limited judgment for the desires of an entire diverse community is a travesty.
As written, the initiative would only require governments and business entities to comply with the rights of the Housatonic River as established by the initiative. No lawsuits could be filed against individual residents.
"We’ll have to see what happens with the signed settlement. We can’t rest easy just yet. We hope there are not going to be any appeals. We hope EPA moves forward to issue a new permit based on the settlement agreement.”
-- Great Barrington Town Manager and Director of Planning & Community Development Chris Rembold
“There is no failsafe technology. In fact, we think the best technology for this level of PCBs is landfilling, because if we use one of these other technologies we might knock it down from 20 ppm to 5 ppm, or even 1 ppm, it still needs to be put somewhere. You still need a landfill.”
-- Bryan Olson, director of the Superfund and Emergency Management Division of the Environmental Protection Agency
The questions I pose are prompted from years working to create strong coalitions to fight General Electric - a rare coalition of former GE workers, sportsmen and women, local Lakewood homeowners whose front- and backyards were contaminated with high levels of PCBs, and environmentalists.
For more than three decades, the EPA has been negotiating with GE toward a goal of cleaning up the Housatonic River. The Rest of River settlement is the latest attempt at fulfilling that goal.
The only way for the item calling for withdrawal to be placed on the warrant is for the selectmen to put it there, even though they were the ones who signed the settlement on behalf of the town in the first place.
The parties know that this cleanup could be better, but they have balanced the waste reduction improvement, the monetary compensation and expeditious start of cleanup against the risks of continued litigation.
Opponents of the recent settlement between General Electric, the Environmental Protection Agency and five South County towns to clean up PCBs in the Housatonic River reveal plans to stop a planned PCB landfill in Lee.
The settlement worked out by the Environmental Protection Administration is not exactly popular with those who are trying to save our world from catastrophe.
