“The retreat brings people together, builds community in the forest, gets participants outside and off their screens, and uses nature sustainably to heal and inspire minds and souls,” stated Great Mountain Forest Executive Director Michael Zafros. Retreat registration closes on July 30.
Ward says he wants to stay alert to potential consequences of future remediation and construction work at 100 Bridge St. in case “disturbances to the site could lead to enhanced pollution” of the Sheffield water supply.
In 2008 Hazen Paper Company bought the building from Neenah Paper Company for $785,000 according to John Hazen, whose company has never had any dealings with GE but whose building is subject to the restriction allowing only industrial use for 12 more years.
If this decision holds strong against what will likely be a protracted legal fight from GE, the $613 million cleanup will go forward eventually, and the PCB-contaminated waste will be shipped out of state.
“I feel that GE is just one in thousands of corporations that are doing the exact same thing to land and to rivers all across the world. We here have our small part to play in that big fight which is to stand up for our land and our water and the respect for humanity.”
--- Pooja Prema, an organizer of the Mega March against PCB dumps
Mega March Against the Dumps, a community-organized march through the center of town in opposition to GE’s plan to build PCB dumps in the local area, will take place on Sunday, July 3, at noon, on Main Street in Great Barrington, Mass.
“We need to look to the long term better good of society. Nobody’s going to want to have a PCB dump near them — and they should be as removed from populated areas as much as possible.”
-- Dr. David Carpenter, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at SUNY Albany
An Edgecast video report on the May 7 march against General Electric's proposal to create a toxic PCB waste dump in the village of Housatonic, along the banks of the Housatonic River at Rising Pond.
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.
We should rescue the Housatonic and clean it as we have never in all the years thought before of cleaning it, and seek to restore its ancient beauty; making it the center of a town, of a valley, and perhaps — who knows -- of a new measure of civilized life.
“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
“Denny Alsop is a man of conviction and an activist.”
-- Muddy Brook Principal Mary Berle, to third grade students, as Alsop met with the class to explain his Canoe for Clean Water expedition up the Housatonic River and beyond
When he reaches Boston, Denny Alsop will tell state leaders that remote as Western Massachusetts may seem, it is the region where Boston derives its water supply. So it matters.
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.
