Mothers Out Front Worcester took to City Hall on June 17th to demand that Eversource repair 5 leaks near schools!

During the hearing, residents and Mothers Out Front volunteers spoke about their personal experiences with gas leaks in the city. Worcester resident and Mothers Out Front volunteer Rhonda Wahya Hicks said she couldn’t sleep when a leak was discovered at her granddaughter’s school.

“I’m very angry that it’s taken so long. We’ve been fighting this for a while. Why is it taking this long?” she said during the meeting. “Anything that has the words gas leaks and schools should not even be a public forum. It should already be taken care of. We shouldn’t have to do any kind of talking.”

Read all about it:

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From Albany/Hudson Valley NY Organizer, Megan Root:

"Last month the town of East Greenbush (the east end of the pipeline) passed a resolution opposing the E37 Albany Pipeline Loop. Now the town of Bethlehem (the west end of the pipeline loop) joins in with voting to oppose this expansion. This is a result (although not mentioned) of Mothers Out Front organizing in the Town of Bethlehem to gain support. We were the main group out front on this end of this dirty fracked gas pipeline expansion."

From the article

The Bethlehem Town Board voted Wednesday night to oppose a $70 million natural gas pipeline that National Grid wants to build from Glenmont and under the Hudson River into Rensselaer County.

The town joins East Greenbush in opposition to the project, which needs approval from the state Public Service Commission.

"I don't think that these natural gas pipelines are our future," [Maureen] Cunningham said. "I don't think anyone believes they are. I do think that we have to look at the repercussions of every energy source."

Read the whole article here:

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Find out about one mom's view of fossil fuel infrastructure in the Capital Region of NY:

As a mother of two amazing kids in the Capital Region, I strongly oppose National Grid's Albany Loop natural gas pipeline expansion project. It would have far-reaching health and environmental consequences for our communities, particularly in regard to our children's chance for a livable future and well-being.

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Terrific coverage of the Mothers Out Front Acton Team's art exhibit to change the conversation about #methaneleaks and to make the invisible, visible.

According to Judith Aronstein of Mothers Out Front Acton, an environmental activist group dedicated to addressing climate change, a 2017 survey funded by the Acton Board of Selectmen and completed by Gas Safety USA measured the size of some 234 gas leaks in town. These leaks were reported over time by National Grid to town the town Department of Public Works.

Aronstein said Mothers Out Front wanted to “make the invisible, visible” by finding a way to visually represent those leaks and their size to town residents to help them see the number and size of those leaks and discuss their impact.

She said the display was about eight months in the making. It was marked Tuesday evening by about 30 residents and community leaders.

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Mothers Out Front NY in the news for their event on May 29th:

Mothers Out Front and Concerned Citizens of Lansing are hosting guest speaker Claire Muller, of Toxics Action Center in Massachusetts, to talk about a successful “Coal to Sol” transition in Massachusetts.

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Mothers Out Front in Woodland/Sacramento joined this town hall meeting hosted by the Sunrise Movement, Yolo County Progressives, Sierra Club (Yolano Group), University Professional and Technical Employees, and Young Democratic Socialists of America at UC Davis

“As a mother and a frontline community representative here in Yolo County, I worry about the effect of the smoke from nearby fires on my two boys when they play and train for football outside,” said Adelita Serena of Mothers Out Front. “On hot days, heat stroke worries me, and I am very concerned to think that some day extreme heat will make it more difficult for kids to play outside and do the things they love.

Read the whole article here:

[embedlycard url="https://www.davisenterprise.com/community/town-hall-for-green-new-deal-meets-saturday-may-25/"]

This is an important article outlining the recent events around the Weymouth Compress Station air permit process, with Mother Out Front Andee Krasner offering the closing quote.

The drama continued on Tuesday, when the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the agency contracted by the state to conduct the health impact assessment (HIA) that informed the air permit, essentially withdrew its support for the assessment’s original conclusion, which did not anticipate human health effects from building the fossil fuel facility. It was this conclusion that greenlighted the air permit.

Citing the newly revealed data, the MAPC said that “the conclusions of any HIA cannot be assumed to hold if new information comes forth, particularly new data that may suggest an increase in risks to people's health.”

In its statement, the MAPC called for considering the cumulative effects of the facility’s emissions, as well as investigating safety concerns and climate change impacts — issues that were beyond the scope of the original assessment.

Activists have been encouraging the MAPC to take a public stand against the assessment, at times excoriating the agency on social media.

“We appreciate the professional integrity that the MAPC demonstrated in making their statement,” said Andee Krasner of the group Mothers Out Front, following the agency’s statement. “As a public health professional, I was heartened to see that they included the need to understand the cumulative impact of the current pollution burden and emissions from new sources. There is ample data to demonstrate the compressor is a danger to health, a danger to safety, and will significantly add to greenhouse gases.”

Read the whole story here:

[embedlycard url="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/22/massachusetts-dep-enbridge-weymouth-gas-compressor-air-permit-jeopardy"]

I was born and raised in New Haven and my family and friends reside in Connecticut. Although I live in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., I care about what happens in Connecticut. I now live in Dutchess County, N.Y., where the 1,100 megawatt Cricket Valley Energy Center located in Dover, to be completed by January 2020, will be emitting some 3.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, every year for the next 30 to 40 years of its natural life cycle. The people of western Connecticut are downwind and just a few miles away.

Please contact the governor of Connecticut and ask him to do more to protect us, and to lead the way toward investments in renewable energy sources — wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal — that don’t harm people or our environment. We have many solutions at our disposal, but the commitment and investments needed to end dependency on fossil fuel is not. The fossil fuel industry has seen to that through its deception and its lobbying influence.

Read the whole letter here:

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 22, 2019

Contacts:

Rochester: Neely Kelley, neely.kelley@mothersoutfront.org 585 451 9875

Buffalo: Clarke Gocker: clarke@pushbuffalo.org, (716) 884-0356 ext. 230

Community Groups and Renewable Energy Advocates from Across New York State Issue “Midterm Report Card” for Energy Efficiency at Forum in Rochester

Regulatory Agencies Get a “D” for Failing to Secure Equitable Energy Efficiency Policy

Rochester, NY - Today in Rochester, community groups and renewable energy advocates gathered and held a press conference at the Low Income Forum on Energy, hosted by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and NYSERDA (the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority). The advocates came bearing a “Midterm Report Card on Energy Efficiency,” calling attention to the agencies’ failure to create a process that guarantees real accountability and benefits for low income New Yorkers - the full report card can be found HERE. Today's press conference in Rochester is just the first event in a statewide series; communities and advocates all over New York are calling on NYSERDA and the PSC to make the promises and potential of Governor Cuomo's efficiency policies a reality for low income communities and communities of color across the state.

This opinion piece by Jesse Lederman is a nice tribute to the power of community organizing. 

With the support of a coalition of organizations like the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, Arise for Social Justice, Mother’s Out Front, and the statewide watchdog group HEET, we worked to bring the gas company together with local officials and community members, and in 2017 were able to announce a deal to repair these leaks over time, with a concerted focus on the largest leaks first. The announcement was the first of its kind in Massachusetts.

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