In the past week there was another confrontation near the pipeline construction area on Beech Plain Road in Sandisfield between police and protesters in which three more arrests were made. One woman, Karla Colon-Aponte, was thrown down and pinned to the ground by a Massachusetts State Trooper hired as security for the pipeline project. A video captured that incident.
Markey cited solar and wind power as future drivers of the economy and he questioned why the Trump administration did not see it as a source of jobs for unemployed workers, especially the blue-collar workers Trump purports to represent.
State Sen. Adam Hinds: "If anybody's learned anything from this election, it's that elections have consequences – serious policy consequences. They are absolutely gutting the EPA at a rate that even the most pessimistic person would be surprised about right now." Hinds was also sharply critical of the state in allowing the pipeline project to move through the Otis State Forest, which is state-owned land ostensibly protected from development.
Sitting right next to the existing right-of-way being widened aggressively by Tennessee Gas Company is a "Thoreau Cabin," so named for American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote the famous essay on civil disobedience.
"This is obviously fear of a trial. We want our day in court to talk about both the immorality and illegality of what's going on ... we want a trial."
--- Vivienne Simon of the Sugar Shack Alliance
Tennessee Gas plans to use millions of gallons from Spectacle Pond to flush out newly installed pipes, raising concerns about chemicals from the pipes being released into the environment.
